Life After Tombstone
by shipperluv
Summary: In the aftermath of their trip to Texas together Riley, Lucas, and Maya struggle with their changed relationship dynamics. Is there truly a way to work things out between the three of them so that everyone ends up happy?
1. Chapter 1

_**Disclaimer:**_ None of these characters are mine. They belong to Michael Jacobs, Disney, and anyone else who officially owns them. Any recognizable lines came from the episode 'Girl Meets Texas 3' and also do not belong to me.

 _ **Author's Note:**_ **My intentions with this fic is to try and work out the triangle situation realistically. That means I probably will be devoting some time to the Lucas/Maya half of the triangle. I wanted to take all the evidence that I thought the show has given us showing that there is an attraction between them, and have that play out like I think the show is doing so it could be gotten out of the way. That said, I'm a diehard Rucas shipper, they are definitely endgame, and I'm planning to try and deal with LM as quickly as I can while still making it believable. I just wanted to give a heads up in case that doesn't sound like your cup of tea.**

 **Some scenes in the story came directly from the episode 'Girl Meets Texas' part 3, but I tried not to duplicate them word for word, and I added my own direction to them to play up the dramatic aspects rather than comedic ones. This will be a multi-chapter fic and will be somewhere around ten chapters long.**

* * *

 **Chapter 1**

"Do you think it's possible Mr. Evans won't give us that pop quiz in Biology today?" Riley asked her best friend as they ascended the numerous steps leading to the entrance of the school. "I know he said Friday that it was a 'distinct possibility', but if he had a nice weekend and he's in a good mood he might let it go, don't you think?"

"Maybe," Maya agreed faintly, her mind clearly on something else.

Ignoring the lackluster reply, Riley went on with determined brightness. "I tried to do the reading last night after we got home, but I was so tired I don't think anything stuck. I only made it through half the chapter before I had to give up, and I ended up going to bed even earlier than Auggie."

Maya didn't say anything and Riley darted a quick glance at her unusually quiet friend. From the moment she'd come by to pick her up for school Maya hadn't really said much of anything. But all through their morning routine of breakfast with her family, walking together to the station, and making the crowded ride on the subway Maya kept giving her these weighty, conflicted looks that filled her stomach with dread.

She'd done the same thing on the train the day before; kept giving her these looks that made Riley feel anxious and sick. She'd done her best to ignore them, chatting cheerfully with her friends, and trying to sidetrack Maya from whatever she was thinking about.

And that had worked up until the last few minutes before the train pulled into the station, when Maya finally broke, saying, "Riley, something happened. I need to tell you..."

But Riley had cut her off before she could say any more. She was sure whatever she was going to say was something about Lucas, and Riley really didn't want to know.

Not knowing was good. Not knowing meant you could tell yourself when you were struggling to concentrate on your Biology homework that maybe they'd only held hands or something next to the campfire. Not knowing meant when you were lying sleeplessly in bed at 7:00 o'clock, and at 10:00, and after midnight, you could convince yourself that they'd probably just talked like they never had before. Things were probably said, long looks had maybe been exchanged across the flames, possibly there had been some kind of touching, maybe some snuggling while they'd shared the fire's warmth...

Not knowing also meant that as you stared out into the darkness, curled up in your bay window, trying in vain to see the stars, you kept thinking _surely they hadn't already kissed_. You'd only just stepped out of the way that night. And Lucas had still seemed so confused and unaccepting of the entire situation. They couldn't possibly have just fallen into each other's arms the moment you walked away.

Not knowing if that was true was really hard, but she was afraid that if Maya told her she was wrong and that they really had kissed it would shatter everything Riley was trying so hard to hold together.

Judging by the looks Maya had been giving her all morning she wanted to end the not knowing. So Riley had kept up a steady stream of chatter to forestall her.

"We might be able to study for it in History if my dad doesn't talk the whole hour," she said now. "But probably the chances of that are slimmer than Mr. Evans not giving the test out of the goodness of his heart."

She gave a strained laugh and Maya smiled weakly in return. But then her expression turned serious, and with another of those heavy looks, she uttered Riley's name quietly as though gearing herself up to speak.

But Riley hurried ahead, her words tumbling out even faster. "Our only other option is Harper's class. Maybe she'll let us have some quiet reading time today. I'm sure she wouldn't mind if we read about Biology instead of Dan, Ann, and the ferns."

"Riley," Maya said more firmly, trying to interrupt.

Riley just kept rushing forward, her feet moving as fast as her mouth now as they pushed through the doors and headed down the hall toward their lockers. "I wish we had Study Hall second period. Usually I like having it at the end of the day because it gives me a chance to get some of our homework out of the way. But today it would really be—"

" _Riley_!" Maya interrupted insistently, obviously determined now to say what she'd been debating with herself about.

"We have to get to class, Maya," Riley said desperately. "If we get there early we can study then."

With that, she quickened her pace even further, her longer legs slightly outpacing her friend's as she practically ran for her father's class.

"Riley, wait!" Maya called, running after her. "I need to tell you something!"

Riley temporarily lost her as she rounded a corner, but in only a few seconds Maya was back at her heels.

"Rile's, something happened in Texas," Maya said at her back. "I need to tell you, okay?"

"Maya, I don't need to know," Riley threw over her shoulder anxiously as both girls tripped down a short set of steps.

"But something happened," she repeated insistently. "I need to tell you. You need to know."

"No I don't," Riley returned with gentle firmness, her loose skirt swirling around her ankles as she spun around to face her.

Standing in front of their lockers, out of the way of passing students, Riley took a deep breath and tried to calm herself.

"Maya, I know things are going to happen," she assured her more steadily. "You have feelings for Lucas. I saw that in Texas. And I want you to be able to feel however you feel about him. I would never want to be the one who was keeping you from doing that."

Saying the words helped renew her sense of purpose. She was doing the right thing, she was sure of it. Maya had stepped back for her when they'd first met Lucas and it was only fair that she do the same for her now. Maya deserved to have her own chance to see where things might go for her and Lucas.

"So don't worry about me, you don't have to tell me anything," she promised, wanting to wipe the uncertain expression from Maya's face. "From now on, whatever happens, happens."

Maya seemed reluctant to let it go at that, but she let it drop as she fell in beside Riley. Turning, they moved together to head into their History class.

And bumped straight into Lucas coming from the opposite direction.

Riley's lips tipped up in pleasure at seeing him, but when she felt Maya come to a halt at her back, she put on a bright exaggerated smile.

"My brother," she greeted cheerfully, drawing back a fist to throw a sisterly punch as she'd done so many times over the past weekend.

"Hey! Hi!" he returned with equal brightness, ducking back and catching her fist before it could make contact with his upper arm, and maneuvering it around so it was held harmlessly in front of him. "Hey, Riley," he said again with a smile, giving the back of her hand a friendly pat as he momentarily held it between his palms. Letting it loose, he said, "Listen, I wanted to thank you again for believing in me and giving me the courage to get on that bull. Pappy Joe called my dad last night after we got home and he wouldn't stop bragging about it. He even said, 'Love ya, kid' before he hung up. I don't remember him ever saying that to me before."

Riley gave a little huff of laughter. "He said he would do that if you won. Pappy Joe made good on his promise."

In all honesty, Riley thought it was a little sad that his grandfather had never told him that before. And that it had taken such a dangerous stunt to finally win his approval. But Lucas had needed to meet the challenge of Tombstone for himself, as well. So in the end she was glad it had worked out so well for him.

"Yeah," Lucas agreed. "And it never would have happened without you, so thank you. Again."

Riley smilingly tipped her head. "Of course, Lucas. You know I'll always believe in you."

They smiled softly at one another for a moment, and when Lucas shifted his smile to Maya behind her, Riley tried not to let her expression change. Judging by the frozen feel of her features she wasn't sure how good a job she was doing.

For Lucas's part, his smile had turned a bit uncertain as he greeted Maya searchingly.

Turning slightly aside, Riley saw Maya return his smile with a quiet one of her own, the expression on her face not one that Riley had ever seen her direct Lucas's way before.

"Hey," she returned his greeting with a small lilt.

His gaze went back to Riley and she met his eyes as he greeted her again in the same vein.

"Hi," she returned sweetly with an earnest tilt of her head.

To Lucas, she seemed to be exuding a sense of quiet desperation as her dark eyes looked into his and he wasn't sure how to interpret it. As he looked back and forth between the two girls, taking in their expressions as they looked at him, and the awkward air that seemed to surround all of them, he'd never been more confused in his life. He didn't like feeling so unsure of himself with the both of them and he just wished things could go back to the way they were. He'd thought they'd all been happy then, but apparently he'd been wrong.

Unsure what else to say to either of them, he finally just smiled and gave them a small wave before turning to enter Mr. Matthews' class.

Before Riley and Maya could follow, a familiar figure approached from down the hall.

"Hey, Riley," Charlie Gardner greeted her with a friendly smile.

"Hi, Charlie," she replied quietly, feeling subdued after their encounter with Lucas.

"Chahlie Gahdner!" Maya added her own greeting, affecting the tone of a 1950's informational video narrator. It was a joke referring back to the time around the spring formal when Riley had been agonizing over Lucas not asking her go with him and Charlie had stepped in to ask her instead.  
At the time when she'd been worrying over what to do, her dad had shown them this silly, outdated informational video in class about how to behave with your date at a school dance. Maya had taken to using the cheesy announcer's voice from the film for days afterward.

"Maya," Riley scolded her lightly, knowing Charlie wouldn't get the joke.

After a brief quizzical look at Maya, Charlie went on with what he'd apparently come to say. "So, I heard you and Lucas were just going to be friends."

Riley and Maya looked at each other in confusion, wondering how on earth he could have heard that so quickly. It had only happened that weekend and they'd only just walked in the doors at school Monday morning. Who could have possibly told him the news already?

The two of them turned to see Zay standing nearby, and he shrugged with widespread arms as if to say 'what could I do?'

"He made me," he tried to excuse, the same way he'd done with Lucas when he'd confessed to telling the girls about Judy the sheep.

"How did he make you?" Riley said skeptically, repeating the words Lucas had said then.

"I said, 'Hey, Charlie, you wanna hear a good story about Riley?' He said yes," Zay returned humorously, giving the same reply as he'd told his best friend.

Riley sighed and turned back to Charlie.

"So anyway, I heard you were free," he repeated. "Is it true? Are you free?" he asked in confirmation.

Riley just stood there, unsure what to say. Yes, it was technically true that she was free now, but she wasn't sure she wanted to give Charlie the encouragement that a yes might give him. Charlie was a nice guy and everything, but he seemed to want something from her that she didn't think she could ever give him.

There was no way to tell him it wasn't true though. She _was_ free.

"Yeah, it's true," she admitted reluctantly, dreading where this might be heading.

Thankfully, the bell rang at just that moment, signaling that it was time for class, and Charlie didn't get a chance to say anything further.

With a quick smile at him, Riley eagerly escaped into her father's classroom, followed by Maya and Zay, and lastly Charlie, who took his seat in the back. Riley gave him a short, uncertain look before turning in her seat in the front row to face the chalkboard behind her dad's desk.

Lucas saw Riley look towards the back of the classroom and followed her gaze to find her looking at that guy she'd gone to the spring formal with. What was his name again? Charlie something or other. He didn't like the look they'd exchanged at all. Had the guy said something to her? If he'd found out somehow that he and Riley were only friends now, Lucas wouldn't put it past him to make a move. He'd certainly moved in quickly enough when Lucas had made the mistake of not officially asking Riley to the dance. But he didn't see how it could be possible for Charlie to have already heard about their change in relationship status. He was probably just seeing something that wasn't there, he told himself.

Mr. Matthews was standing in front of the chalkboard where the subject of the day's lesson was written in large, blocky letters. It looked like they'd be learning about the Hoover Dam this morning.

The curly-headed teacher with eyes like Riley's waited for everyone in the class to be seated, and the moment the tardy bell rang he launched immediately into his lecture.

He began by equating the ten trillion gallons of water that were held back by the dam with the same massive amounts of confused, fourteen-year-old feelings. In that over-the-top, excitable way of his that he'd so obviously bestowed upon his daughter through his genes he demanded that none of them let any of those emotions get through the barrier of the dam because he wasn't ready for them, and wouldn't be able to handle it, so nobody move.

The fervor with which he insisted that any drop of those feelings that might slip through would chip away at the structural integrity of their lives and would spell the end of his personal happiness made it clear that he was already worked up over the personal situation of his daughter that had inspired his lesson for the day. He probably already knew about everything that had happened in Texas, Lucas realized, and obviously he was having a hard time dealing with it.

In a way it made Lucas feel a sort of kinship with his favorite teacher. Mr. Matthews seemed just as unsettled and thrown by the whole thing as he was. But in another way it made him feel a little hopeless and dismayed. If Mr. Matthews couldn't get a handle on it with all of his age and experience, what hope did _he_ have of figuring it all out?

Lucas hadn't noticed the note that was being passed forward from student to student until it reached Farkle's hand, who was sitting at the desk next to him. He watched him read the name written on front and pass it on to Riley, and his heart started thumping with dread.

Riley opened the folded piece of notebook paper with the unfamiliar writing, and her stomach dropped when she read what it said.

 _Since you're free. Will you go out with me?_

And it was signed, _Charlie._

So she hadn't escaped where she'd feared Charlie was heading with his questions after all. She'd hoped she could hurry out at the end of class and avoid him, at least until lunch, which was the only other period they shared. And she'd even been thinking about hiding out in her dad's classroom during that period, if she'd been able to get Maya to go along with it.

But none of that mattered now. Charlie was waiting for an answer.

Before she could give any thought to what that answer might be, though, her dad called her out. He'd apparently seen the note.

"Riley? What's that?" he asked suspiciously, and Riley hurriedly refolded the note and stuffed it under her leg.

"Nothing," she tried for innocence, ignoring the paper that seemed to burn her leg through her skirt.

"Did something get through?" he persisted, relating the note to what he'd been saying in his lecture.

"Riley, something happened between me and Lucas," Maya suddenly blurted out, obviously unable to contain it anymore.

Several people in the class gasped, and Riley looked across the aisle at her best friend with stunned hurt, hardly able to believe that she'd made such a personal confession _here._ In front of her dad, and their friends, and everybody.

Maya just looked back at her with worried eyes, fear and uncertainty coloring her features.

Riley looked at Lucas, sitting behind Maya, and found the same uncertain anxiety on his face .

As she looked at them both she felt betrayed. And she shouldn't, she told herself fiercely. They hadn't done anything wrong. She'd practically thrown the two of them together. And she'd told them that her feelings were nothing to worry about. She couldn't feel betrayed if they'd taken her at word and 'something' had happened. She still wasn't any clearer on what the 'something' was, but clearly it was something big enough that Maya felt she had to tell her about.

It didn't matter what it was anyway. Whatever happens, happens, she reminded herself. She and Lucas were like brother and sister, and he and Maya were...well, 'something' had happened. They were moving on in a new direction and she needed to do that, too.

With that resolution in mind, she turned to look at the back of the class.

Every single person in the classroom had their eyes trained on her in expectation, but she ignored them and looked only at one person.

"Yes, Charlie. I will go out with you."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

What was she _doing_? Why had she told Charlie yes?

During the next four periods after her dad's class Riley was freaking out inside. She'd assured Maya that she knew what she was doing when her best friend asked, but she really, really didn't.

She wasn't ready for dating. Even when she'd liked Lucas (so very much), and they'd known each other well and had learned to talk more easily, she'd quickly realized after their painfully awkward attempt at a date earlier that year that she wasn't ready for dating.

And now here was Charlie, a boy she barely knew at all, a boy who, however sweet, made her feel under pressure. Because she didn't understand exactly what he wanted from her but she almost certainly wasn't ready to give him whatever it was. She wanted so badly to go find him during their shared lunch period and tell him she was sorry but she'd changed her mind.

But she was forcefully reminded of why she'd agreed in the first place, first at lunch, when Zay had made a comment about what had happened in class that morning, but most especially in sixth period, when Maya told her that Lucas had asked her out.

She accepted the news with resolution. And didn't feel betrayed at all. She loved Lucas like a brother, she reminded herself. And she _wanted_ Maya to have her chance with him.

She just hadn't expected the two of them to take that chance and run with it quite so quickly.

 _Everything_ was just happening so quickly.

But it didn't matter, she told herself dismissively. They were going on a date together, and she was going out with Charlie. She didn't allow herself to second guess it anymore after that. It was what she wanted, she thought forcefully. It was the way things should be.

And that sick feeling that stayed with her for the rest of the day would go away.

#############

What was she _doing_? Why had she told Lucas yes?

For the rest of the day Maya questioned her actions just like she had in Texas.

She'd known for awhile that she felt some kind of spark with Lucas that you probably wouldn't feel for someone who was just a friend. And it definitely wasn't something you should feel for your best friend's unofficial boyfriend.

So she'd ignored it, and playfully heaped on the insults, and told herself it was just the challenge she always felt with him to ruffle that unflappable good guy thing he always had going. She never asked herself why she felt so compelled to ruffle his feathers and get him to react to her.

Riley liked him, he and Maya were just friends who enjoyed the little game they played back and forth, and that was all that mattered.

But then she started thinking that he and Riley seemed more like a brother and sister, and that spark got harder to ignore. She'd never told Riley that she'd started to see them that way, even though she didn't like keeping secrets from her. But she knew how Riley was, and if she knew Maya was thinking that she and Lucas seemed more like siblings she was afraid Riley would let that get into her head, making her worry over it and start questioning everything. And ultimately it didn't matter what she thought about the state of their relationship, unless Riley came to the same conclusion on her own.

Then Zay came along, and blabbed about Lucas calling her a blonde beauty in his texts. And a month or so ago Zay had pointed out how fired up Lucas was getting on her behalf when they were threatening to cut art class. And suddenly Maya was questioning everything herself.

She couldn't help but wonder if Lucas felt the spark between them, too. But she didn't let herself wonder about it very often. It didn't change anything even if he did. So she'd kept her shifting, confusing feelings to herself.

She thought she'd been doing a pretty good job of hiding them. Until Lucas had to go and ride that stupid bull. She'd given herself away then. And Riley had seen.

Riley told her that she'd known for awhile that Maya had been thinking she and Lucas were like brother and sister. She'd been totally calm when she'd said it, and hadn't seemed like it had messed with her head at all. She'd just admitted it was true, that she loved Lucas like a brother. And the craziest thing about it was that when Riley had said that? Maya had suddenly been as scared as she'd been when Lucas had been clinging to the back of that giant, rampaging bull.

Riley had said that there was nothing Maya could ever do that would change the two girls' friendship, and she should go ahead and feel whatever she was feeling towards Lucas.

The trouble was, Maya didn't **know** what she was feeling for Lucas. She didn't even know how to act around him anymore since Riley had told him she liked him. She'd tried to fall back on her familiar teasing mockery but it had led to that whole crazy-confusing moment by the campfire when he'd grabbed hold of her face to shut her up. She'd thought he was going to kiss her then and it had thrown her into a tailspin. She'd wanted him to but she was so glad he hadn't. She didn't know _why_ he hadn't, but then again, she didn't know why he'd cradled her face like that in the first place. She didn't know what to make of any of it.

Everything was just happening so fast. Riley wasn't going to be with Lucas anymore, they were going to be like brother and sister instead. And she was already going out with someone else, which pretty much sealed the whole deal. So when Lucas had asked Maya on a date, even though it all seemed so soon, she'd gone ahead and said yes. Riley kept telling her to go with her feelings, and if Lucas actually wanted to go out with her, that's what she wanted, too.

Right?

################

What was he _doing_? Why had he asked Maya out?

All through his last few classes of the day Lucas kept asking himself that.

Somehow everything had gotten so crazy and upside down. Riley, the girl he'd been into ever since he'd first gotten to New York, suddenly wasn't into him anymore and wanted to be his sister. And Maya, the girl who cheerfully and gleefully made fun of him all the time suddenly liked him. Or actually, maybe not so suddenly. Maybe she'd liked him for awhile.

He'd had two days to think about it and he still couldn't wrap his head around the whole thing.

He didn't understand how Riley could make such a sudden turnaround. They'd been just fine last week. In fact, when he'd gone over to her house to study Thursday night they'd ended up laughing and talking more than studying. And when he'd teased her from across her dining room table, her eyes had sparkled when she'd teased him back, and he'd been pretty sure they were both flirting. Most definitely they hadn't been acting like brother and sister. Where had that even come from?

At first he hadn't completely believed her when she told him she loved him like a brother. It had come so far out of left field that he wasn't sure she really meant it. She hadn't been acting like herself at all and he'd thought that whatever had made her say it was just something she was flipping out about like Riley so often did. Being close to Riley was a definite rollercoaster ride, but Lucas loved rollercoasters. He liked being able to help calm her fears when she was in the middle of a personal crisis. And usually by the time they'd helped resolve whatever was bothering her they all had learned something, about themselves or each other.

So he'd thought if he just hung in for a little bit he'd find out what was really going on.

But then she suddenly had this newfound comfort when she was around him. She said he didn't make her nervous anymore and she liked it. And the night at Chubbies when they were dancing, she'd talked about how she didn't want to lose him if they dated and broke up, but if they were like siblings maybe they'd always have each other. He'd realized then that this was actually something she'd been thinking about for awhile.

The knowledge shook him, and he'd realized that she honestly meant what she was saying. She really wanted them to be brother and sister.

And he didn't know what to do with that. Because it wasn't what he wanted at all.

And then she'd blindsided him later that night by the campfire when she told him Maya liked him and had all along. That completely threw him for a loop. It didn't seem possible at all.

When he'd asked Maya about it after everyone had left them alone, their attempt to have a serious conversation about it hadn't worked at all. Maya started mocking his speech, which was the Maya he was more familiar with, but for some reason, that time, it made him mad. She'd persisted even after he'd told her to stop and somehow, in the next moment, he was holding her face between his palms and his head was bending down to kiss her silent.

He'd stopped the moment he'd realized what he was doing, and he was shocked at what had almost happened. He and Maya couldn't even have a simple conversation together, what was he doing almost kissing her?

It confused him to think he might even want to kiss her. He'd never felt that way about her before. It had always been Riley, from the very first.

But Riley didn't want it to be her anymore. She'd accepted a date with another guy right in front of him. He was sure she'd only done it because of what Maya had said- _in front of Mr. Matthews and the entire class_ \- but when he'd tried to talk to Riley after class to explain what had actually happened she'd shut him down.

She'd said it didn't matter; that he and Maya were both free and they should do whatever they wanted.

"And I'm free, too, right?" she'd asked rhetorically. "So I should do the same."

She'd ended the conversation with a punch and a casual, "See you at lunch, bro!"

She'd said it all in that chipper Riley way of hers, but the whole thing had kind of destroyed him. She wasn't bothered by what might or might not have happened between him and Maya? She didn't even care enough to find out what it was? It didn't seem like it. In fact, it seemed like she was encouraging them to do more. _And she was going to do the same._

He couldn't get that last thought out of his head. He'd had trouble concentrating in his next two classes because he couldn't stop wondering what she'd meant by that. Did she want to do things with this Charlie guy? That couldn't be right. In the whole year and a half that she and Lucas had had their 'thing' the most they'd ever done was hold hands and share a quick peck on the lips. Lucas had been waiting for his moment to really kiss her for the first time, but that moment had just never seemed to happen.

Charlie what's-his-name probably wouldn't wait for any moment. The guy was always swooping in as soon as he saw an opening, and he would probably just swoop in when it came to kissing, too.

But Riley wouldn't go for that, Lucas had assured himself. She wasn't ready for any of that. She'd _told_ him she wasn't ready. But then what did she mean, _she was going to do the same_?

He'd brooded over it through second and third period, and when he'd gone into his Algebra class next, he'd found Charlie already seated at his desk there, talking to a couple of guys sitting behind him. Lucas had made his way to his own desk and had studiously ignored them as he'd taken his seat and pulled his things from his book bag. When he'd heard Riley's name he'd been unable to tune them out though, and he'd glanced their way to find Charlie telling them about about his upcoming date with her. He'd talked all about where he was thinking of taking her, and the whole time Lucas had gritted his teeth, sure that Charlie knew he was hearing them.

And lunch the next period hadn't been much better. Riley had sat beside him, talking brightly about the Biology quiz she and Maya hadn't been prepared for, joking about them all having 'train lag', and had generally acted as if she didn't have a care in the world. And the whole time she'd been nudging Lucas in the side, or pushing against his arm, or punching him lightly, continuing to demonstrate that she wasn't nervous around him anymore.

The only time she'd paused had been when Zay had joined them and had cheerfully announced that everyone in school was talking about Lucas and Maya after her blurted confession in first period.

Riley had gone quiet then. And for a second Lucas had thought he was getting it wrong; it really did bother her. But in only moments she was back to joking, leaning into him briefly in a playful nudge and happily calling him brother.

It just made him crazy that she'd been able to shut off the feelings he'd thought they had and could so easily change what he meant to her. But she was doing it without any problem, and it hurt.

He'd looked away to find Maya gazing at him from across the table, and she'd immediately made a remark, calling him Ranger Rick. It was the first time he'd felt like he was on familiar footing all day, and he'd sent her a grateful smile. She'd smirked back and suddenly he'd been thinking about their near-kiss.

And all familiarity flew right out the window.

He felt guilty even thinking about that. But he could hardly look at her without remembering it and trying to puzzle out why it had happened. He was so confused about what was going on between him and Maya. He had no clue what she was thinking or feeling and he didn't have much of a handle on what he was feeling, himself.

When lunch was nearly over the two girls had left together to go to the restroom. When they'd come back a few minutes later Riley had subtly steered Maya to the chair she'd been sitting in next to Lucas and had headed around the table to take Maya's former seat for herself. He'd looked from Maya sitting down hesitantly beside him to Riley as she rounded the table, and he saw her wave tentatively at someone across the lunchroom before reaching her chair.

Looking in that direction, he'd seen Charlie smiling over at her, his hand falling back to his side. Lucas had found himself gritting his teeth again, and for the last few minutes of lunch he'd seethed; over Riley and her date, Riley treating him like a brother, and Riley pushing him and Maya together.

When the bell finally rang and everyone got up to leave, he and Maya had brushed against each other as they'd pushed their chairs in under the table. She'd stopped and looked up at him while the others moved on, her eyes posing questions as they'd searched his.

And Lucas had looked back at her, thinking about what had happened by the campfire, thinking about Riley, and suddenly he'd been asking Maya out.

It had come out without thought. He hadn't expected her to say yes. And when she did he hadn't been sure how to feel.

Everything was changing so fast. It felt like they were back on the Amtrak train, shooting down the tracks, with no way to get off or even slow down.

But this was how Riley wanted it. And Maya must want it, too, or she wouldn't have said yes.

And apparently what he wanted didn't matter.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Lucas and Maya went home with Riley after school that afternoon. They entered the apartment through the front door for once since they were all coming in together.

"Dad, I'm home!" Riley called out as soon as they all got in.

Without waiting for an acknowledgement, she led them on back to her room. The three of them went in, and by unspoken agreement, headed straight for the bay window, dropping their backpacks on the bed as they passed it.

Lucas ended up sitting in the middle, an uncomfortable representation of exactly how he felt these days, caught between the two of them.

He was hoping they were here to finally talk, and maybe figure out a way to stop this runaway train they were all on.

Somehow oblivious to the tension in the room, Riley said cheerily, "Isn't it amazing how comfortable we are with each other?"

"No," Lucas drawled in answer. "I'm actually not comfortable at all," he contradicted somewhat wryly.

"Yeah, I have to agree with him, Riles," Maya put in. Comfortable wasn't something she'd felt in days. Things didn't feel the same between her and Riley, even though they were both determined not to let anything change. And with Lucas literally between them, the undisputable reason why things were different, she didn't see that changing. Add to that the off-balanced uncertainty she felt around Lucas right now and she could definitely say she wasn't anything close to being comfortable.

"Why?" Riley asked with a smile, wrinkling her nose. "We're all good friends here, right? Lucas is my brother, you're my best friend, and the two of you are going on a date. What's uncomfortable about that?"

With a brief little lift of her brows, Maya made a face, the ironic expression seeming to say 'Let me count the ways'. But she didn't say anything out loud, so Riley continued on.

"So since you're my brother now, Lucas, I thought maybe you could give me some advice. 'Cause that's what brothers do, right?"

Shrugging helplessly, Lucas shook his head a little as he answered, "I guess they do. What do you need my advice about?"

"The Charlie Gardner of it all," Riley replied immediately. "What does a first date mean in the language of boy? I want to crack your code. What does he want? Tell me. What?"

Lucas looked at her disbelievingly. _This_ was what she'd asked him over to talk about?

"You're seriously asking me that? You want me to give you advice on your date with another guy?"

Riley bit her lip, only then considering that it might not be be fair to ask this of him. She really was just trying to help them be more comfortable in their new roles. She'd thought this would help them feel more brother/sister-like. And she truly did want to know what Charlie wanted of her. Maybe she shouldn't have asked Lucas though.

Lucas was just looking at her silently. He wanted to be mad at her for asking this of him, but he could see that she truly was confused and was just looking for answers. He couldn't believe she'd come to **him** for those answers. But that _was_ what a brother did, right? And he guessed he'd better start getting used to doing the brotherly thing.

"Fine." He sighed in resignation. "You want to talk about dates? We'll talk about dates." He shook his head at the craziness of it all. "It's not like it's some great mystery, really. He obviously asked you out because he likes you. I thought he made that pretty clear at the semi-formal. So, you know, technically, this isn't even your first date."

Which didn't make things better in Lucas's opinion. It actually made them worse. Not that he had a lot of personal experience to go on, but it just seemed to him that it would give a guy more confidence, knowing that a girl liked him enough to go on a second date with him. And going somewhere alone together to a public place was a whole different thing from going to a school dance, surrounded by your classmates, where your date's father was the chaperon. It might be enough to give a guy ideas.

He attempted not to grit his teeth again as he continued. "As for what he wants from you, I don't know the guy, Riley. I don't know what he's expecting." Thinking of their own awkward date, he said, "But it's probably safe to say that he might try to hold your hand at the very least, so if you don't want that I'd make it clear right up front."

It made him feel better to know that once she made it clear to him that something so innocent as hand-holding was off the table, Charlie would understand that everything else would be off limits, too.

Riley hadn't said anything, she was just sort of staring blankly towards the floor. Lucas couldn't help but think that she looked uncomfortable over the entire thing.

"You know, it's not too late to back out of this, Riley," he said gently. "Charlie seems like an okay guy," he admitted, much as he hated to. "I'm sure he would understand if you told him you'd changed your mind."

Riley's head jerked up at that, her lips curving in an automatic smile.

"I couldn't do that. What would I even say to him? I really don't have a reason to back out." Even though she'd decided that she wasn't going to second guess herself over this she was half-hoping they'd give her a good excuse to get out of it. "I mean, you two wouldn't back out of your date now that you've agreed to go out, right?"

She didn't know why she'd even asked them that. She guessed she was hoping they'd contradict her, and if they backed out she could, too. But instead, they just sat there looking at each other in a way that was hard to watch.

It might have looked to Riley like they were gazing into each other's eyes, but Maya and Lucas were both actually contemplating her words. If either of them had given the other any indication that they wanted to back out they might have done it right there. They were both thinking that it might be a bit of a relief if they actually didn't go through with it. But there was also something there that kept them from speaking up; some curiosity that wouldn't be ignored.

When Riley couldn't take their silent staring anymore, she turned her gaze blindly towards the floor again.

"Right," she muttered in answer to her own question since none was forthcoming from the two of them. Taking a deep breath, she stated with firm determination, "So there's no reason for any of us to back out. We're all going out on dates."

Before they could discuss it any further her dad came to her door to check on them. And as a depressing testament to how much everything was changing, he didn't even try to throw Lucas out of her room.

##################

School the next day was hard for Riley. Everyone in their class was still buzzing about Maya and Lucas. Their yearbook pick for favorite couple was finally happening and everyone was trying to guess what could have happened over the weekend to get them together. Everywhere Riley went, in the hallways, at her locker, in the lunchroom, she kept hearing their names crop up in passing conversations.

And her dad had only added fuel to the fire in her first period class with him that morning. He'd written her, Maya, and Lucas's name on his board as the subject of his daily lesson without even bothering to relate their situation to a historical event as he normally did. He'd only made the attempt to couch it in terms of Japan's relations with France at the end of WW2 when Maya had jokingly called him lazy for not even making the effort this time. He'd been pretty worked up when giving his lecture, stating that they were growing up against his wishes. And he'd told them that what was happening with Riley, Lucas, and Maya would happen to all of them, and to everyone everywhere, at some point in their lives.

That, of course, had sent the speculation about the three of them running even more rampant.

Riley really loved having her dad as a teacher, but it was at times like these that she wished he had a more conventional teaching style instead of letting the events of her life guide his daily lesson plans.

The feeling that everyone was watching them everywhere they went added strain to an already strained situation. Riley didn't want things to feel strained. She tried her best to ignore what the other kids were saying and did everything she could to make things feel normal when she was with Maya and Lucas.

But no matter how hard she tried, there was an awkward tension among them that just wouldn't go away. It was even there when it was just her and Maya at her house after school. She hated it but she didn't know how to fix it. She tried to figure it out long after Maya had left, and still later when she should've been in bed.

On Wednesday Riley woke up to a gray, dreary day that was spitting a sullen rain at her bay window. She buried her face in her purple striped pillow case, not wanting to get up, and was just drifting back to sleep when her mom's voice roused her.

"Riley? This is your sixth and final wake up call, sleepy head. Unless you have chicken pox and can't go to school you have to get up," she told her, referring to an old joke. "Come on, honey, get up, you're late!"

She slapped an open palm against Riley's door frame a couple of times for emphasis then her heels went clicking briskly down the hallway.

Riley dragged her eyes open reluctantly and was yawning tiredly when she heard her mom talking to her brother in the front room.

"Auggie, baby, come on. Get your things together, it's time to go."

Riley's yawn died abruptly and she jerked upright, her eyes shooting to the clock at her bedside.

7:22. She _was_ late. _So_ late.

Jumping out of bed, she hurriedly stumbled to her closet. Pulling out her favorite top, she pawed through the hangers and snatched the first skirt she came to. She threw them on quickly, jammed her feet into the boots she'd worn the day before, then dashed down the hall to the bathroom. After a quick rush-job of brushing her teeth, washing her face, and brushing the tangles out of her hair, she barrelled down the hall to the front room, an apology to Maya for making them late already on her lips.

But her best friend wasn't sitting at the table where she expected to find her.

"Where's Maya?" she asked with a bewildered frown.

"I told her to go on ahead since you were running late," Topanga answered, stuffing a few last minute items into her briefcase.

"And she went?" Riley asked incredulously.

Topanga paused what she was doing at her daughter's tone and gave her an odd look.

"Well, yeah. Should she not have?"

Feeling out of sorts and, irrationally, left behind, Riley continued to frown. "We always go together. Every day since we started middle school, Maya and I have gone to school together."

"Well, honey, you were late," Topanga reasonably pointed out for a second time. Turning away from the counter, she began bustling around in the kitchen. "You weren't going to make the 7:30 train, so I told her you'd go in with me and Auggie."

The explanation didn't do much to appease Riley. She didn't know why it was bothering her so much that Maya had gone on without her. It was perfectly reasonable for her to have gone on ahead, there wasn't any point in them both being late. But somehow it felt more significant than just that.

If things had been completely normal between them she thought Maya would have waited for her even if it meant being late. But it seemed to be yet another small thing pointing out that things weren't the same between them. And not having her there to start her day with intensified the feeling of wrongness that seemed to surround them all the time now.

"Why didn't you get me up sooner?" Riley complained, her brow furrowed and a slight pout on her lips.

Topanga made a small sound of disbelief, gaping at her daughter good humoredly. "I tried to, Miss Cranky. You wouldn't wake up. You kept falling back to sleep every time I called you. Why are you so tired?" she questioned with a sudden frown. "You aren't really sick are you?"

Sighing, Riley answered, "No. I just haven't been sleeping very well lately. Sorry. For being cranky," she said contritely.

"That's okay, honey," Topanga assured her, head tipped to the side and her face drawn into a sympathetic moue as she walked over to her. Handing Riley a warm toaster streudel wrapped in a paper towel and a cold glass of milk, she said regretfully as she stroked her arm up and down, "I wish you had time for a better breakfast, but we have to get a move on. The cab will be here any minute."

Riley nibbled on the pastry while she packed her bag for school. She was only half way through both when their cab driver announced his presence on the intercom.

Taking the cab to school was frustrating. Traffic was snarled more than usual, due to the rain, and by the time they'd made it to John Quincy Adams after dropping her brother off at his school, Riley was nearly ten minutes late.

The front steps were deserted as she hurriedly climbed them. She did her best to shield her head from the rain with her bag but she was drenched within moments. Entering the building gratefully, she swiped at the wetness clinging to her everywhere as she rushed down the silent hallway, but it was futile. She felt like a drowned rat.

She was glad she had her dad's class first, although she did hate to make him look bad by showing up late. She knew she wouldn't be in any real trouble over it, but it was a sure bet that he'd say something to her about it in front of everybody. And whatever he said would probably be personal, which would make everyone look at her- all wet and messy and barely put together- and start them whispering some more, something she was finding it harder and harder to deal with as the week wore on.

Surprisingly, he let her off easy though. He didn't immediately stop his lecture the minute she walked in the way she'd expected him to. Instead, he kept talking while she silently took her seat, and only after he'd finished what he was saying did he stop and give her a concerned look.

"Everything okay?" he asked quietly.

"Yeah," she assured him with a nod. "We got caught in traffic. I'm sorry."

He accepted the excuse with a nod, then resumed speaking to the class.

As Riley pulled her book from her bag she glanced over at Maya and Lucas and greeted them with a smile.

"Sorry I didn't wait this morning," Maya immediately whispered.

Riley dismissed the apology with a smiling shake of her head.

"There wasn't any need for you to be late, too."

Chewing on her lip, Maya smiled briefly in return, nodding in acceptance of her easy forgiveness. She'd felt bad ever since she'd left Riley's apartment at Mrs. Matthews' urging. It had seemed like the reasonable thing to do at the time, but once she'd gotten on the subway alone it felt wrong that she'd broken their morning tradition. Especially now, when things felt so uneasy between them.

Riley was acting like she was fine with it, but Maya was sure that if it bothered her, it was bothering her best friend who always overthought things.

She wouldn't pursue it in class though. Ever since she'd blurted out her confession about Lucas and everybody had started flapping their gums about it she'd been trying to keep their personal stuff a little more private. All the rumors flying around didn't make things any easier whenever she was around Lucas now, but even so, she thought it bothered Riley more than it did her. Riley always worried so much about what other people thought. Maya was sorry she'd gotten the whole gossip business started and she was trying to do better to make up for it.

So she waited until class was over and they were on their way to English before offering more of an apology.

"It felt weird coming in to school without you this morning."

"Yeah, it did feel weird," Riley agreed. "We always start our day together."

"I shouldn't have left without you."

"I shouldn't have slept so late," Riley countered. "Why didn't you wake me up?"

"I tickled your toes," Maya told her, and an immediate awkwardness fell over them again.

It was true, she had gone into Riley's room and tickled her feet. It was what she always did to wake her when Riley overslept. But the last time Maya had told her she'd done that, Riley had smiled goofily and said that explained the Lucas dream she'd been having.

She was sure Riley was remembering that moment the same as she was, and Maya didn't know what to say.

Riley was remembering it. And the memory shot a small pang through her.

Ignoring it, she didn't look at Maya as she spoke to fill the uneasy silence between them. "Well, I'm sorry I didn't wake up. And it's okay that you didn't wait. Let's just promise never to come to school without each other again. Even if we have to drag each other out of bed."

"Agreed," Maya said firmly, taking her cue from Riley and ignoring what she'd inadvertently dredged up. Giving her a sidelong glance, she grinned. "Because clearly you need my fashion expertise when it comes to picking out what to wear in the morning," she teased, eyeing Riley's pink and blue top paired with a gold skirt that had a bold rust-colored print.

Riley laughed good-naturedly and looked down wryly at her hastily chosen outfit.

"It's true," she agreed lightly. "I'm a total disaster without you, Peaches."

Smiling, the two girls linked arms as they made their way into Harper's class.

The hour in English went slowly. Riley usually enjoyed the cool new teacher's classes. She had an unconventional teaching style the same as her dad did, but Harper was edgy and fun.

Riley wasn't keeping up with the current assignment though. They were reading 'Where the Red Fern Grows' and discussing it in class. When they were finished they were supposed to watch the movie adaptation, then choose a more current book that had been made into a movie, and contrast the two. Riley hadn't decided whether she was going to go with the 'Hunger Games' or 'Divergent' series but she was looking forward to that part of the assignment.

It was the current reading she was having trouble getting through. She knew how the older book ended and she wasn't eager to get to that part to begin with, but every time she tried to read at home, her mind would wander to Lucas and Maya and everything that had been happening lately. As a result, she was much further behind on the assigned reading than she was supposed to be and she was completely lost during the class discussion.

Riley was trying not to let on about how clueless she was feeling, but when Harper called on her she had to admit that she hadn't done the day's reading assignment. The teacher was nice about it and told her to try and be caught up by tomorrow's class, but Riley couldn't let herself off the hook so easily. She was used to doing well in school. She always did her homework, and sometimes did Maya's, too. She didn't like not being prepared in class, but lately it seemed like that was all she ever was. It made her feel like this huge failure, and she didn't like the feeling at all.

That feeling was only intensified when they got the results back on their pop quizzes in Biology.  
A big, red 67 stared up at her from her paper and Riley felt sick. She'd braced herself for a less than stellar grade but she hadn't expected a D. She'd _never_ gotten a D before. Her mom would be so disappointed in her.

Maya tried to console her before they separated to go to their next classes, but grades didn't mean as much to Maya. She didn't like to fail but she got low marks pretty regularly and she thought Riley was making a bigger deal out of it than it was. It was just one grade, she tried telling her.

Riley tried to pay attention in Health class next period, but she kept picturing her mom's face and what she'd say if she found out about that one bad grade. Riley knew she wouldn't yell or anything, but she'd probably want an explanation, and Riley really didn't have one. She'd just been too distracted lately and now it was affecting her school work.

A fact that was illustrated when she was once again called on by the teacher and he asked her to reiterate something he'd just said.

Cringing, she searched her memory for the answer, but she finally had to confess, "I'm sorry. I-I wasn't really listening."

"I understand," Coach Thomas nodded sagely. "This is boring stuff. We wouldn't want to get in the way of your daydreaming."

The class laughed, and Riley wanted to sink through the floor. Having the attention of your classmates in your dad's class was one thing, but no one wanted to be the butt of a teacher's joke when they were already embarrassed to begin with.

She didn't let her attention stray for the rest of the class, and Coach Thomas made a show of calling on her twice more while the rest of the class looked on, entertained. When class was over she couldn't get out of there fast enough.

Needing a minute to herself before she met her friends in the cafeteria for lunch, she ducked into the girl's restroom. It had been a horrible day so far and she just needed a chance to pull herself together and gear herself up to face everybody.

Several girls filed out as she came in, so there were plenty of unoccupied stalls. She darted into one towards the middle of the row, knowing she didn't have much time to waste. They only had 30 minutes for lunch and Maya was waiting for her.

While she was occupied in her stall, the bathroom door continually swung open and shut with the noisy coming and going of girls looking to wash their hands, primp in the mirror, or use the bathroom. Over the sound of chatter, flushing toilets, and running water at the sinks one girl could be heard complaining in front of the mirror.

"Ugh, I look like something my cat threw up."

"Speaking of," another one answered, "have you seen Riley Matthews today?"

On her feet in the stall, Riley froze in the act of adjusting her clothes.

"She looks like a homeless person or something."

"Right? Did you see what she was wearing?"

They both laughed.

"It's like she threw on the first thing she picked up off her floor."

Riley bit her lip, looking down at her mismatched outfit, unable to laugh it off like she had when Maya had said something.

"And I heard she walked into her dad's class like 45 minutes late this morning, and it looked like she'd run all the way to school in the rain."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. She's a total wreck. She's clearly having a breakdown over losing Lucas."

"You think? I've seen her still hanging out with him and she doesn't seem all that upset."

"Oh come on, it's a total act. I mean, it's Lucas Friar, the most gorgeous guy in school. Of course she's losing it over him."

Girls were still coming into the room and leaving, but the two girls talking never paused. Obviously, they didn't care if they were overheard.

"It's not all that surprising, really," one of them said. "I always knew Lucas would wake up one day and realize Maya was the one for him."

"Oh, I know. It was always so obvious that they had a thing for each other. The way Maya was always up in his face trying to get him to break?"

"I know, right? And Lucas totally flirted back. You could always tell how much he loved driving her crazy."

"Yeah, they practically sizzle together. Lucas and Riley were cute, but him and Maya are like...Damon and Elena. They have all this passion or something."

"Exactly," the other agreed. Her next words were said as the two of them were on their way out the door, and were almost swallowed up by the noise of the hallway outside. But they were still audible. "Poor Riley doesn't even hold a candle to them."

Standing motionless inside the stall, Riley was stricken. It still hurt to hear people talk about her relationship with Lucas and find it so lacking. She'd heard comments like that when the yearbooks had come out and everyone had voted Lucas and Maya 'Favorite Couple'.

But now it just left her painfully wondering how she could've been so blind. She and Lucas had never had any fire, they'd been like a brother and sister from the start. Why hadn't she seen that like everybody else and gotten out of Maya's way?

It made her feel like such a terrible friend for not seeing how much Maya had liked him from the very beginning. She had gotten up in his face a lot, and had always been pushing at him to try and get him to—do _something._ And yeah, Lucas had always refused to give in to her, but he'd always enjoyed her efforts. He'd even said that once a long time ago. Why hadn't she realized that they had been flirting? Everyone else had seen it, why hadn't she?

If Riley hadn't been indulging her own delusions about Lucas all this time Maya could have been with him from the first and they wouldn't be going through all this painfully confusing awkwardness right now. She could've spared them all the heartache if she hadn't been so blind and selfish.

Riley exited the stall, her throat aching with sadness and guilt. Mechanically, she washed her hands before leaving the bathroom, then joined the dwindling flow of students that were heading for the lunchroom. She walked down the halls on auto-pilot, only taking notice of her surroundings when she was approaching the cafeteria doors. There, she found not just Maya waiting, but Lucas, Farkle, and Zay as well.

When she got a few yards away from them she could hear Lucas saying, "Should we check and see if her class got held up or something?"

"I'll go," Maya immediately volunteered.

Turning to leave them, she saw Riley and stopped.

"There you are," she said with relief. "What took you so long?"

"Sorry," Riley said huskily in a small voice. "I just went to the bathroom. You guys didn't all have to wait."

"That's okay. We didn't mind," Farkle assured her, looking at her assessingly.

Lucas was silently studying her, too. She didn't seem right, and her voice sounded funny.

"Riley, what's wrong?" he asked with concern.

Immediately she put on a smile. He was beginning to hate when she did that. It was like she thought she always had to put on a good face for them.

"Nothing," she replied with a shake of her head. "I just feel bad that I made you all wait."

Lucas didn't think that was all it was. She seemed really upset. And Maya wasn't buying it either.

"Riles?" she probed with a frown.

But Riley smilingly insisted, "It's nothing, Maya. I'm fine. Let's just go eat, okay?"

Giving them little choice, she entered the cafeteria, herself and left them to follow behind.

The line for food was short, and when it was Riley's turn to be served, she forced a smile for her friend Geralyn and gave her a friendly hello. The dark-skinned woman returned her greeting warmly as she spooned a serving of bland spaghetti onto her tray, then extended her greeting to Maya as she served her next.

The two girls headed for their usual table and were seated before the boys had made it over.

"Are you going to talk to me?" Maya asked, dividing her attention between Riley and readying the drink on her tray.

"About what?" Riley asked, playing dumb, and Maya gave her a chiding look.

"Did something happen in Health class?" she persisted.

"Besides getting caught daydreaming and putting myself on Coach Thomas's hit list?" she said jokingly just as the boys were sitting down across from them.

"Coach Thomas caught you daydreaming? Oooh, that's not good," Zay commiserated, speaking from experience.

He told them about some of the times he'd 'had other things on his mind' in class and the humorous consequences when he'd gotten caught. Riley laughed along with everyone else and even made light of her own recent experience with Coach Thomas, but her heart wasn't really in it.

The guilty sadness she'd left the restroom with wouldn't leave her, and she found herself looking at Lucas and Maya with different eyes.

There wasn't any fire between them at the moment. Actually, they barely seemed able to even look at each other, and had been that way ever since they'd all come back from Texas.

Their awkwardness around each other was yet another thing for Riley to feel guilty about because it was her fault it was there. She probably shouldn't have confessed Maya's feelings to Lucas, it hadn't really been hers to confess. But Lucas had been so confused about what was going on that she'd wanted to give him some kind of an explanation.

And it had been clear that Maya wasn't going to say anything to him about how she felt. She'd just been watching him without saying anything since the moment Riley had told him she just wanted to be his sister.

So Riley had just wanted to give them a little push. The same way Maya had when she'd asked Lucas out last summer. When Riley had misunderstood her motives for doing that she'd explained that she'd only done it to push Lucas towards Riley. He'd see it was actually her he wanted to go out with when he realized he didn't want to go out with Maya. Her words were ironic now, because Maya had assured her then with complete confidence that Lucas didn't want to go out with her. He would _never_ go out with her.

It looked like she'd been wrong about that, Riley thought now, a fresh wave of melancholy washing over her.

She guessed she'd been tuned out from the table conversation for awhile because when she looked up from her tray she found Lucas watching her from across the table.

Her heart stuttered then started beating faster as they locked eyes. A longing for something she couldn't even name pierced her chest as she took in the caring concern in his gaze. Lucas was such an amazing person. He was so good, and funny, and kind, and he'd do anything in his power to help his friends when they needed him. She was so incredibly lucky to have him in her life, and she wanted him to be there always, no matter where life ended up taking them.

Being her brother ensured that he would be. But brothers didn't make your heart beat faster, did they? Brothers didn't make you wish for things you were afraid to put a name to.

So she had to put those kind of feelings away. They didn't do anybody here any good except to confuse things.

Lucas wasn't sure what he was seeing in Riley's face as they gazed at each other, but for once she was serious and unsmiling. She'd looked so sad, sitting there listlessly picking at her food, and he was sure something had happened to upset her. But when she'd looked into his eyes he'd seen something there that had made his heart turn over. It didn't seem like a look a sister would give him. It seemed like she was wanting something from him, yearning for it maybe, and, immediately, he wanted to give her anything.

But a few seconds later something shifted in her eyes and seemed to shut down, and out came that smile she'd been wearing so often lately. He didn't know what it was about it that seemed to set his teeth so on edge. Riley smiled all the time, it was nothing unusual. There was just something about this particular smile that made him want to shake her or something.

Anyway, whatever he thought he'd seen in her eyes was gone now. Or maybe he'd never seen it there in the first place. He was never sure what Riley was thinking anymore. And that made him feel like he'd lost something important.

Because sister, friend, girlfriend, whatever she wanted to be to him, there was no question that she was one of the most important things in his life.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

After school that afternoon Riley, Maya, Lucas, and Zay went to Topanga's to hang out. Farkle had stayed after school to talk to one of his teachers and was supposed to meet them there later. Riley had only gone because it was something they normally did. And these days she was all about keeping things as normal as possible.

Only fifteen minutes after they got there she was wishing she could just go home though. It had actually been a pretty rotten day and she was ready to call it over and hope for a better one tomorrow.

She was just so exhausted. Usually being positive and cheerful was something that came pretty naturally to her, but today it had really been an effort. Between the late hectic start without Maya, the bad grade and embarrassments in her classes, and the conversation she'd overheard in the bathroom, staying upbeat had been a chore that had taken all the energy she had. She really just wanted to go home and go to bed.

But she couldn't leave things the way they were with Maya and Lucas. The two of them were still barely making eye contact with each other and she needed to do something to fix it.

So when Maya and Zay went up to the counter to get them all some smoothies Riley stayed behind with Lucas in the cluster of seats around the coffee table where they always sat.

When they were alone in their seats, he in one of the two orange armless chairs, and she on the printed ottoman, they looked at each other and smiled a bit uncertainly.

"So, you and Maya seem... quiet with each other. What's going on with you two?" Riley asked with an inquisitive smile.

Lucas glanced towards the counter at the girl in question and shook his head. "I don't really know, actually. We don't seem to know what to say to each other these days."

"Well-" Riley said the word shortly and shook her head as she searched for words. "Just don't give up on her, Lucas. I think she's worried about things changing, but maybe if you could let her know everything will be okay somehow, that might make things easier."

She didn't feel comfortable giving him suggestions that were any more specific so she left it at that.

"I think I'm going to go ahead and head home," she told Lucas, her face scrunched up in a self-conscious sort of smile. "It's been a long day, and I've still got a lot of reading to get done for my English assignment," she excused, scooping her bag up off the floor and slipping the strap over her shoulder as she stood.

"Oh. Okay," Lucas nodded, a little surprised that that was the end of their conversation. "I guess I'll see you at school tomorrow then."

"Yeah! I'll see you tomorrow," she responded brightly. "I'm just going to say bye to Maya and Zay before I leave," she added, pointing toward the counter as she headed that way, and throwing him one last smile.

Maya and Zay both turned to look at her as she approached, but it was Maya who zeroed in on the bag over Riley's shoulder.

"Hey. Are you leaving already?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty tired," Riley answered.

"I'll get our smoothies to go then." Maya turned to find the part-time waitress and change their order.

"Actually, I think you should stay," Riley told her, stopping her.

"What? Why?"

"You and Lucas should talk."

Maya's lips twisted as her expression flattened into one of confused skepticism. "Talk about what?"

"Just...talk. You guys have hardly said anything to each other since we got back from Texas. Why don't you take this timet to sit down and talk," she suggested.

"I think that's a great idea," Zay put in just as their drinks arrived. Thanking the waitress when she handed him his, he settled back with it on his stool and got comfortable. "I'll just drink my smoothie over here and let you two sit over there and talk."

Nodding once, Riley smiled. "You can think of it as practice for your date," she added lightly.

Maya's nod of agreement wasn't terribly enthusiastic, but she couldn't deny that if they were going to go on a date together they would have to talk to each other. A practice run beforehand might not be such a bad idea.

That settled, Riley said to both of them, "I'll see you tomorrow then."

"See ya, Riley," Zay returned easily, casually sipping his drink.

"Here, don't forget your smoothie." Maya started to hand it to her but Riley waved it away, not really in the mood for it anymore.

"Farkle can have it when he gets here if he wants."

"Okay." Maya set it back on the counter, then looked at her somewhat unsurely. "Talk to you later, Riles."

She seemed a little lost, and Riley put her arms around her to give her a bolstering hug. "Everything's gonna be fine, Maya."

Her best friend nodded, and they parted to exchange a smile of farewell before Riley went on her way.

She waved goodbye to Lucas when he turned in his chair to see her walking out behind him, and he returned her wave. She could see when he realized Maya wasn't leaving with her, and he shot a look over to the blonde who was heading his way with their drinks.

When Riley was home, tucked in at her bay window with her book lying unread beside her, she tried to guess at the emotions she'd seen in Lucas's eyes when he'd shot that look at Maya. Surprise, nervousness, uncertainty...pleasure?

Of course pleasure. She chided herself for even questioning it. Of course he would want to spend time alone with Maya. Riley should've given that to them days ago. If they could get back to an even footing with each other, they could go back to flirting to their hearts' content. And then go on to even more. And Riley would be happy when they got to that place. Because that would mean she hadn't ruined everything between them. All the smiles she'd shared with Lucas, all the conversations where they'd enjoyed each other's company and had learned so much about each other, riding off together on the white horse, their first date when she'd kissed him, it would mean all those things she'd done with Lucas hadn't messed things up completely for Maya.

She'd loved getting to experience all those things with Lucas, but now she felt like it should've been Maya who'd experienced them instead. She wanted that for Maya, she deserved to be happy. But it made her feel like crying to think that all those moments with Lucas that meant so much to her should never have really happened at all.

When her mom startled her from her thoughts Riley realized that she _was_ crying and she hastily wiped the moisture from her cheek.

"Riley? Honey, are you alright?" Topanga questioned, hovering in the bedroom doorway.

Riley smiled at her wetly then shook her head. "Not really," she answered with a self-conscious little laugh.

Topanga crossed the room immediately and sank down on the bench seat beside her.

Gathering Riley into her arms, she just held her for a moment, resting her cheek against her daughter's dark hair.

"I'm sorry, sweetie. Do you want to talk about it?"

Riley's arms went around her mom's waist as she curled up in her comforting embrace.

"I don't know. Could we just sit here for a little bit?"

"Of course," Topanga assured her, giving her a little squeeze.

They sat there quietly for a short while, their only movements the slow, soothing passes of Topanga's hand up and down Riley's arm. When the position became a bit cramped for Riley she readjusted herself so that she was lying with her head in her mother's lap. Topanga adjusted to the shift of position easily and started stroking Riley's hair.

As Riley lay there under her mom's soothing ministrations her mind began to wander. She wondered how Maya and Lucas were doing at the restaurant and whether they'd managed to talk everything out. She wanted them to be able to do that, but at the same time she dreaded it. They'd been in a strange place this week and hadn't interacted much, but when they had, it had been hard to watch. When Lucas had done the 'hi' thing with Maya in the hallway their first morning back, when they'd gazed into each other's eyes here on the window seat when Riley had asked if they'd call off their date, watching those things had made Riley's heart feel as if it were being squeezed. She could only imagine how much worse it would be once they worked everything out and really started acting like a couple.

It was going to be so hard to stand by and watch them. And it made her mad at herself for thinking so because it wasn't right.

"I know I'm doing the right thing, Mom. I'm sure of it. I just don't understand why it hurts so much."

"I told you, honey, things are rarely as simple as we'd like them to be when feelings are involved. It's hard to make ourselves feel something that we don't just because we think we should. Is that what you're doing, Riley? Are you trying to feel something you really don't?"

Topanga had her doubts about Riley's feelings for Lucas suddenly turning sisterly, but those weren't the feelings Riley considered when she answered the question.

"No, I'm happy for Maya. Truly. Lucas asked her out and it was what she wanted, so I honestly am happy for her."

"And what about Lucas? Are you happy for him?"

"Of course. I realized today that he and Maya have liked each other all along. I shouldn't have gotten in between them."

Still playing with Riley's hair, Topanga frowned. "What made you realize that?"

"Something I heard just got me to thinking. It actually made me feel like an idiot for not seeing it sooner."

"I'm sure you're not an idiot, Riley. What is it exactly that you think you should've seen?"

Riley shrugged a shoulder. "Just the way they acted around each other. They flirted with each other all the time. I don't understand how I missed it. It was right there in front of me."

"You're saying Maya and Lucas have been flirting in front of you? All these months when Lucas has been interested in you? Does that sound like something he would do? Because I'm sure it doesn't sound like something the Maya Hart I know would do to her best friend."

Riley frowned, considering what her mom said. She was right. Maya would never flirt with a boy she knew Riley liked. Especially not right in front of her. And it wasn't something Lucas would do either. They hadn't actually been together so it wasn't like he'd be cheating by flirting with Maya, but he was the one who'd acknowledged that he and Riley had an unofficial thing going, so he wouldn't go around flirting with her best friend.

It **wasn't** something either of them would do, and yet the fact was, they **had** been doing it.

Hadn't they?

"Maybe...they didn't realize they were even doing it," Riley said slowly, trying to work it out.

"Or _may_ be that's not what they were really doing at all," Topanga suggested.

Riley thought about the interactions between Lucas and Maya that she'd seen so differently after the conversation she'd heard in the bathroom, and tried to make sense of them given what her mom had pointed out. But she just couldn't get them to gel.

"I don't know," she said after a moment, giving up on the endeavor. "All I know is that I never should've started anything with Lucas to begin with. It would've been better for everybody." There was a moment of silence after she made that statement, then she said in a small voice, "But...it makes me so sad to wish it all away when it was so wonderful."

Topanga gave Riley's arm a comforting squeeze, sharing her daughter's pain, but she didn't know what to say. She felt like she needed to give some wise motherly advice, but she was at a bit of a loss. This was a difficult situation and without knowing the true feelings of everyone involved she didn't know how to help resolve it.

In the end it didn't matter. She'd stayed silent so long that the soothing movements of her fingers in Riley's hair had eased her exhausted little girl to sleep. Topanga sat there with her troubled thoughts and continued to stroke her for a long while until eventually Cory came to find her.

"She fell asleep on me and I didn't have the heart to wake her," Topanga whispered when he crossed the room to join them.

Cory squatted in front of the window seat and put one hand on his wife's calf and the other on Riley's arm. "She's had a pretty rough week," he whispered back, looking at Riley with sympathy.

"Yeah, and I don't think she's been sleeping," Topanga added.

"Wanna get her to bed?" he questioned, and she answered him with a nod.

Easing an arm under Riley's neck and his other arm at the bend of her legs, Cory lifted her from Topanga's lap. He tried to be easy but the movement startled her partially awake.

"Daddy?" she said groggily, her eyes barely even open.

Cory cradled her closer to his chest as he carried her toward the bed. "It's okay, I've got you," he reassured her, "Go back to sleep, Riley."

Riley turned her face into his shoulder and was back to sleep in the next instant.

Topanga got to the bed ahead of him so she could pull back the covers, and after he'd laid their daughter down, they tucked her in together. With one of them on either side of the bed, they took turns leaning over and kissing her goodnight.

Cory was last, and after dropping a kiss onto her forehead, he leaned back to look at her sleeping face. There was a frowning crease between her eyebrows and he used a thumb to gently try and stroke it away, his own expression unsettled. Riley was such a happy person, it was rare that she frowned, it disturbed him that she was doing it unconsciously in her sleep. He exchanged an uneasy look with Topanga, and then tenderly stroked the hair from Riley's forehead before leaving her.

He and Topanga left the room together, and as soon as he flipped the light switch off and shut the door behind him she said, "I'm worried about her, Cory. I just don't see how this whole thing can work out without someone ending up unhappy. And I know Riley's going to do everything she can to make sure it's not Maya or Lucas, no matter what it ends up doing to her."

Cory shrugged helplessly. "What do you think we can do? You were the one that said we had to trust them to work it out, and I think that's the only thing we can do."

"I just wish we knew how all three of them really feel so maybe we could do something to help guide them," Topanga said in frustration.

"I don't think _they_ know how they really feel, honey, that's one of the things they have to figure out." When she continued to look concerned, he told her, "I talked to Farkle today and he's going to find out what he can and try to help them. They'll figure it out together, Topanga." He slid an arm around her and pulled her to him, and with his cheek against her hair, added, "They always do, right?"

Topanga took shelter in his arms, wrapping her own around his waist. Lying against his chest, she let out a sigh and agreed. "Yeah, they do. But I still think we should keep an eye on her, and keep checking in." She leaned back to look up at him. "Our daughter has a habit of taking care of everyone but herself sometimes."

"Mm, she's like her mother that way," Cory said, and their smiling lips met in a kiss.

#################

"You poured your smoothies over his head?! Maya, _why_?" Riley asked the next morning, apalled that Maya could hve humiliated Lucas that way in the middle of their everyday hangout. She'd left them alone to talk and _this_ is what happened?

When Maya replied it was a near-groan, rife with frustrated confusion. "I don't know. We were just sitting there staring into space like a couple of idiots, and when I told him to give me his best **that's** what he came up with? The same story he told you when you two were starting out?" she said with skeptical incredulity, her face an angry grimace. "I felt like he was giving me a line or something and he was expecting me to react to it the same way you did. But I'm not you, Riley, I'm nothing like you, and I guess I just kind of lost it," she explained shortly, gesturing with an upturned palm and an abrupt shrug.

"He knows you're not like me, Maya. He doesn't want you to be. He likes _you_. And he would never use a line on you, how could you think that? Lucas isn't like that." Riley was dismayed that she didn't seem to know Lucas better than that. "You told him to give you his best and he was doing what you asked. That story broke the ice with us when **we** were having trouble talking. And it was something he'd never told anybody else when he told me that was what made him decide to be a veterinarian."

"Yeah? Well, now he has told somebody else. You. And it felt like he was trying to recreate that day or something. And I didn't feel like being a stand-in for you," she muttered softly to her lap.

"Maya," Riley said sympathetically, reaching over to cover her hand with hers. "I'm sure that's not what he was doing. He just— you kind of put him on the spot. You know?" she said gently. "Demanding that he come up with something to say and to make it good. What did you expect him to say?"

"I don't know," she groaned again. "I just don't understand why it's so hard. We've never had any trouble talking to each other before. Why can't he just tell me his stories, and I can make fun of them, and everything will be back to normal?"

The two girls were sitting in the bay window and had to leave for school soon, but they'd taken a moment to talk when Riley had asked Maya how her time with Lucas had gone. Now Riley was smiling in puzzlement over Maya's last remark.

"You still want to make fun of him? I thought you only did that to hide how you were feeling about him. But you don't have to do that now."

"I know," Maya replied, a hint of defensiveness in her voice. "But that's just how we work. I don't know how else to be, with him."

"Don't you ever want to just talk to him?" Riley asked, her nose crinkled in an inquisitive smile. "He's really nice to talk to."

"I know he is, for you. You two have a lot to talk about. And now that you're brother and sister you don't have to worry about the awkward thing anymore, so you can talk as much as you want." This whole conversation was making Maya uncomfortable, but that idea made her feel better. She'd told Lucas that he and Riley were at their best when they were just talking to each other, and now they'd be able to do that whenever they wanted without any problem. "Me, I just like making fun of him." Her head tilted in a shrugging little laugh.

"But why?" Riley asked, feeling a little upset, but covering it with a laugh of her own.

"Why do I like making fun of him?"

"Yeah."

"Because..." Maya shook her head briefly, searching for words, "he's great," she finally said.

"Yeah," Riley said again, this time in agreement. She was still smiling but her forehead was furrowed with confusion.

Seeing that she didn't understand, Maya elaborated. "He needs someone like me to bring him down."

Riley nodded along with Maya even though she wasn't sure she agreed.

"And he needs someone like you for..."

"For why? For why does he need me?" Riley prompted, needing to hear the answer. Now that Maya was occupying the place that Riley had held in Lucas's life for the past year and a half, Riley honestly didn't know what she had to offer him anymore.

"To- build him up," Maya offered in answer, gesturing to Riley with an open palm. "To listen to his Ranger Rick stories and make him feel like a hero. You like his stories. And he likes yours," she pointed out, her voice faltering at the acknowledgement of how good they were for each other.

Yeah," Riley said softly once again, sadness welling up behind her smile.

She did love talking to Lucas. And for some strange reason it felt like she hadn't talked to him in weeks, even though she distinctly remembered chattering away with him the past several days. Somehow it didn't seem like that had even been her. And even though she knew Lucas had talked to her, too she couldn't remember anything they'd said to each other lately that seemed of much consequence.

Things weren't the same between them anymore, she realized. She missed him like she hadn't seen him in such a long time even though he'd been beside her all week as much as he always had.

Was this how it was going to be between them now? she wondered painfully. Would it feel like she'd lost him even though he was right there?

The prospect haunted her for the rest of the day.

Their conversation made Maya feel unsettled all day, too. The things they'd said kept playing through her head at odd moments of the day and had her questioning things again. All she seemed to do these days was question everything.

Everything they'd said that morning had just seemed to point out how much better Riley was with Lucas than she was. How much better _for_ him she was. Riley was good at listening to him and enjoyed what he had to say. She built him up and made him feel good about himself. And what did Maya do? She liked to make fun of him and bust him down. She poured smoothies over his head. _What was wrong with her?_ She was terrible to him, and he was probably sorry he'd ever asked her out. She wasn't sure why he'd even done it to begin with.

Why couldn't she just talk to the guy like a normal person? Why did she have to be so... Maya?

She needed to do better. If you liked someone and were going to date them you shouldn't make fun of them. She needed to try and be different with him.

It was a resolve she carried with her to their date the next night.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

As the subway took off from its latest stop, its forward momentum made Charlie tilt sharply against Riley, sitting next to him.

"Sorry," he said sheepishly, righting himself.

"That's okay," she assured him, laughing it off.

Her smile was gone the next minute as they both fell back into silence.

The way Charlie had fallen against her like that, she couldn't help but be reminded of the time the subway train had sent her sprawling across Lucas's lap. She'd already been thinking about her first date with him. The similarities between that time and sitting on the subway next to Charlie on the way to their date made it hard not to.

The uncomfortable awkwardness she felt now was a far cry from the warm feeling of walking on air she'd had with Lucas that night. It wasn't fair to make that comparison, and it was painful to do it anyway, but she couldn't seem to stop herself. All the moments that had made that night so special kept running through her head and it all seemed so bittersweet now.

"Sooo. Just to be clear," Charlie said, interrupting her thoughts, "When you said no talking did you mean you just didn't want to talk about anything personal? Or did you mean please, Charlie, let's spend the entire night locked in a deafeningly awkward silence?"

A gust of laughter escaped Riley. "More like the first one, I guess."

"Good," he replied, looking pleased with her laughter. "Nothing personal... So—how 'bout those Knicks?"

Riley forced a laugh, but inside she was cringing. How did he keep managing to do things that reminded her of Lucas? She was doing her best not to dwell on what had happened at Topanga's earlier but Charlie kept dredging things up unintentionally. She could never think of the Knicks anymore without remembering when she'd ranted to Lucas about them, and how he'd looked at her in awe when she was through and told her he liked her.

"Yeah, how 'bout 'em," she answered Charlie weakly.

"Not a basketball fan?" he deduced from her reaction.

"Yeah. I am," she contradicted in the same weak voice.

"What, too personal?" He continued to try to guess why she was being so closemouthed.

A hint of frustration had crept into his voice and Riley responded immediately. "No, of course not, Charlie. I am a Knicks fan. I just... was thinking about something else," she explained lamely.

Awkward silence came back to claim them, and they were only saved from it by the arrival of the train at their stop.

The theater was a few blocks away once they'd climbed to street level. On the walk there they talked about the weather- of all the lame things- after Charlie asked her if she was warm enough. When they'd pretty much exhausted the topic, he ended by expressing his concern that they were having to walk so far in the chill weather while she was wearing a dress.

"Not that I'm complaining about your dress," he hurried to assure her. "You look really great tonight. I didn't get a chance to tell you that earlier."

"Thank you, Charlie," she answered with a bashful laugh, though the reminder of why he hadn't had the chance to say that when they'd met at Topanga's didn't make her feel much like laughing.

It was a relief to enter the warmth of the theater and be distracted from the direction of her thoughts. It was Friday night and the multiplex was extremely busy. While they waited in line for their turn at the ticket counter they discussed which movie to see. They finally decided on 'Pan' and talked about what they knew about it from the previews and what they'd heard from others.

Once they had their tickets in hand they crossed the lobby to go stand in another long line at the concession counter. They exchanged a couple of self-conscious smiles while they were waiting, but didn't say much beyond a brief questioning of what she wanted him to get her when they got to the front of the line. Riley eventually excused herself to go to the restroom and when she got back he was waiting for her with their snacks in his arms.

She quickly relieved him of one of the drinks so he didn't have to do such a juggling act to hold everything.

"Thanks," he said gratefully, and after shuffling things around, handed her a package of candy. "I hope that's the right kind."

"It's perfect. Gummies are my favorite. Thank you."

He nodded with a smile, then tilted his head to gesture to their left. "I think we need to go this way. We're in theater five."

She followed him back and they made their way past a couple of theaters then came to the one showing their movie. Entering, they found some seats towards the back in the middle of a row, where they both agreed they preferred to sit. Once seated, they took off their jackets and settled themselves in.

When Charlie got his drink situated in the cup holder on his seat, he balanced their giant tub of popcorn on his knee next to her.

He grinned at her as he tore open his bag of licorice pieces. "Have you ever tried these together? It's amazing."

Toying with the straw in her drink, Riley smiled skeptically and shook her head no.

"You have to try it, Riley, really. It's so good you won't believe it."

Doubtfully, she held out a hand so he could pour a few pieces of candy into it and put her own drink into its holder.

"I won't put it in the popcorn if you don't like it," he promised as she filled the other hand with buttery kernels.

She popped the rubbery sweet candy into her mouth first and followed it with the warm salty goodness of the popcorn. The two flavors melded together in her mouth and it was... not as disgusting as she'd thought it would be.

Charlie was looking at her expectantly. "Good, right?"

Riley nodded her head and smiled. It wasn't 'so good she couldn't believe it' but it was alright. Of course, chocolate would've been so much better...

The thought threatened to take her down the Lucas path again, but was disrupted by the movie previews that began playing.

She turned to the screen and did her best to follow them since they were an important part of Charlie's movie experience. But the movie itself failed to hold her interest. She found her attention wandering about ten minutes into it, and it wasn't long before the thoughts and emotions she'd been holding at bay flooded in.

At some point a burst of laughter from the audience pulled her out of them, and her eyes automatically went to the screen to see what she'd missed. She realized some time must have passed because she'd completely lost the thread of the movie. Shooting a guilty look towards Charlie, she tried to concentrate on what was going on on the screen. But she soon lost focus again and became immersed back into her own thoughts.

She just couldn't stop thinking about her conversation with Farkle outside of Topanga's earlier. She and Charlie had met there before coming to the theater, and Lucas and Maya had been there on their date. Farkle and Zay had been there, too, and she'd dragged Farkle outside to keep him from saying anything in front of the others when he'd been about to spill his thoughts on why she'd stepped back from Lucas. She'd told him at first that he didn't know what he was talking about, but it turned out that he had been right.

She'd been lying to herself all this time. She didn't see Lucas as a brother and she never had. She'd known that really. She'd just been trying so hard to convince herself it was true because it would make things easier for everyone involved.

But Farkle had pointed out a lot of things from her and Lucas's past that had made her realize that her feelings had really never changed. She did love Lucas, but not like a brother.

It didn't make any difference though. Maya and Lucas had feelings for each other, too. And she'd stepped back to give them a chance to see where those feelings led. Just because she was clearer now on her own feelings didn't mean all that still wasn't true. And Maya's happiness meant too much to her for Riley to let anything she felt stand in the way of her achieving it. So this really didn't change anything at all.

At least, she didn't want it to change anything. But Farkle had said he would tell Maya and Lucas how she really felt if Riley didn't do it herself. It upset her that he would threaten to do that, but he'd told her that friends didn't lie to each other.

And she knew he was right. One of her dad's class lessons last year had been that you never lie to anyone, not even to spare their feelings, and Riley tried to live by that. Maybe that had been part of the reason why she'd tried so hard to convince herself that Lucas was like a brother. If she believed it, it wasn't a lie. But now that Farkle had made her see the truth she felt guilty to be lying to two of the people who were most important to her. It was going to be hard to keep doing it. She wasn't sure she could still do the sister act at all.

But she'd told Farkle that she would tell them, she just needed some time. And she soothed her own guilty conscience by telling herself the same thing. Right now, what they didn't know couldn't hurt them. It was all for the best, really.

She was brought back to the present when the lights in the theater went up and people started rising from their seats all around her. Her eyes jumped to the screen and she was disconcerted to see that the movie credits were already rolling. Charlie gathered their jackets from the seat on the other side of him, then got up with them folded over his arm. Riley climbed to her feet guiltily as he politely waited for her to stand and they fell in line with everyone else shuffling out of the theater.

When they got to the lobby Charlie took Riley's arm and guided her out of the main stream of traffic. Once they were out of the way he held Riley's jacket open for her in a gentlemanly fashion.

"So, how'd you like it?" he asked as she turned her back to him to slide her arms into the sleeves.

Riley bit her lip, feeling terrible that she'd paid so little attention to the movie, and also to Charlie himself.

"Um...it was a good movie," she finally said in answer. She'd heard other people say they thought that, so it wasn't really lying, was it? "Did you like it?"

"I did. I was afraid it was gonna be more of a kiddie movie since it was about Peter Pan, but it turned out to have some decent action and pretty good special effects. It got a little Harry Potter-ish there at the end, but that whole fight scene was the best part of the movie, don't you think?"

Feeling more dishonest by the minute, Riley could only smile weakly.

Misinterpreting her reaction, he said, "What, you didn't like it?"

"I- guess I must've missed that part," she finally had to confess.

Charlie smiled in puzzlement. "You missed the whole last scene?"

Her expression apologetic, she admitted, "I think my mind was just somewhere else. I've just had so much going on lately... I'm sorry, Charlie."

"I guess I don't have to ask what was on your mind. Or should I say _who_ was on your mind," he said a bit bleakly.

Remorse flooded her at the disappointment on his face, but she couldn't completely deny his charge. "I was just thinking about what Farkle and I talked about earlier. A lot of things have been happening since we got back from Texas and I haven't been able to concentrate on much else lately. I really am sorry. I haven't been fair to you at all tonight, Charlie."

One side of his lips tightened as he shrugged a shoulder, and he conceded, "I had a feeling it wasn't exactly gonna be my night when he showed up at Topanga's saying he couldn't be your brother."

"I'm sorry," she apologized again, repentance contorting her features.

He made a good-natured dismissive motion with his head, then touched her arm briefly to start them moving towards the doors at the entrance. When they were expelled onto the sidewalk with the rest of the exiting crowd they turned to make the return walk to the subway.

"So, you think you're gonna be getting back together with him?" Charlie asked once they were far enough away from the others to talk.

Riley looked at him in surprise. "No, we're still just going to be friends. He's going out with Maya now," she reminded him.

"You're still free then?"

Lips turning up, she made a face of quizzical disbelief. Surely he wasn't going to ask her out again.

"Yeah," she drawled questioningly. "I'm still free."

"So would you maybe want to try this again sometime?"

Riley stopped and turned to face him. "Why would you even want to, Charlie? I was terrible company tonight."

"I wouldn't say _terrible_. You told me going into this that there wouldn't be any talking. I'm actually getting more than I expected here," he joked.

Riley shook her head and laughed. "I don't get you, Charlie."

He gave a self-deprecating shrug. "I'm not that hard to figure out. I just...I like you, Riley."

 _I really like you, Riley_.

The smile fell from her face when she remembered Lucas saying almost exactly the same thing. It had made her heart jump in happiness at the time that he'd said it, but now it just stabbed her with a pinprick of pain.

"Did I say something wrong?" Charlie said uncertainly, seeing her face fall.

Riley jerked herself back to the present, berating herself for continuing to do that. She was here with Charlie. She needed to be _present_ with Charlie and stop allowing stray memories to take her to places she shouldn't be going to in the first place.

"No, you didn't," she assured him. "I- I'm really flattered that you like me. And that you want to go out with me again even though tonight couldn't have been all that fun for you. But...I'm not sure it's such a good idea."

"Why not?" he asked lightly, as though he was trying not to let on how much it mattered to him.

She shrugged uncomfortably, trying to be honest but not hurt his feelings. "Because- I couldn't really promise that I'd be any better company if we tried again. I'm just sort of in a weird place right now, Charlie."

"You really weren't bad company, you know. I always enjoy being around you, Riley."

Riley tipped her head and smiled, her eyes falling to the ground. "That's sweet of you to say." She felt like it was glaringly obvious that she hadn't returned the sentiment, but she couldn't quite bring herself to.

She really was flattered at his interest, but his persistence made her a little uneasy. She still wasn't sure exactly what it was he wanted from her.

"So that's a no then?" he asked, still trying to sound lighthearted about it.

Riley gave a wincing sort of smile as she considered what to say. She wanted to just agree with him and say she was telling him no, but looking at the hopefulness shining in his eyes, she found it hard to do. If tonight had proven anything it was that she had no business going out with anyone when she couldn't stop thinking about Lucas. She couldn't **be** with Lucas though, she had to move on, and how was she going to do that unless she went out with someone else?

She wasn't sure what she should do.

"Could I just think about it?" she finally compromised.

"Yeah. Sure," he said immediately, without a trace of rancor.

His easy acceptance made her feel bad all over again. He really was a nice guy. She should've given more effort tonight. He'd deserved better.

She tried to rectify it on the trip home. She gave him all her attention and they chatted about school, some of their teachers, and their siblings. She found out he had three sisters, one older and two younger. His dad wasn't in the picture anymore so it was just them and his mom. Riley thought that might explain his gentlemanly tendencies. And she felt for him when he told her that he'd had to become the man of the house when he was twelve.

She felt like she knew him a little bit better by the time she got home. And he seemed like even more of a good guy.

He walked her to her apartment from the subway, and she sat with him on the stoop there while he waited for the cab he'd called to take him home.

"This has been really nice," he said softly as they sat in the relative silence offered by her neighborhood at night. "I know you think I didn't, but I had a good time tonight."

"I'm glad. I had a nice time, too. I'm just sorry my head was somewhere else for most of the night," she apologized again.

But Charlie shrugged it off. "Like you said, you have things going on right now. I understand. It can't be easy seeing your ex with your best friend. Especially if you're all going to stay close friends. I'm surprised they started dating so soon after you and Friar broke up. That's a little...unusual, isn't it?"

Riley shrugged uncomfortably, her eyes on her lap. He'd put his finger on one of the things she didn't like to think about. Dwelling on that fact made her feel things she didn't want to feel so she tried to just push it aside.

"It wasn't really like that," she refuted, picking at a thread in her skirt. "Lucas and I didn't really break up because we were never officially together to begin with."

"Yeah, but still," he argued, though that seemed like all he was planning to say about it.

"Still what?" she prompted, feeling defensive all of a sudden.

Charlie must have sensed that in her voice or something because he darted a look at her and immediately backed down.

"Nothing," he said dismissively, "I'm sorry I brought it up."

Part of her wanted to pursue it and ask him what he meant, but another part of her- the bigger part- just wanted to let it lie, so she let it drop.

The topic had put a damper on their conversation though, and the awkwardness from earlier in the night fell over them again.

Fortunately, his cab pulled up to the curb a few minutes later and broke them from the ill-at-ease tension that sat between them.

"I guess this is me," Charlie said, rising from the step, and motioning to the cabby that he'd be right there. He turned back to Riley, who'd risen to stand, too, and smiled a bit shyly. "Thank you for tonight, Riley. I hope we can do it again sometime. But there's no pressure," he assured her with a grin, holding up his palms in a gesture that said he was backing off. "It's totally up to you."

Riley gave a little laugh. "Thank you, Charlie. For everything," she said sincerely. "I'll talk to you at school."

Lips rolled inward, he smiled and nodded once. "See you, Monday."

He went down the steps and turned to give her a wave before climbing into the cab. Riley waved back and dug out her key to let herself into the building.

As she climbed the stairs to their apartment she wasn't quite sure how to feel about the events of the night. As dates went, she guessed it hadn't been a complete disaster, but it was far from what she'd call a success. She couldn't help but wonder if Maya's date with Lucas had gone better than hers. Had they just hung out at Topanga's or had they gone somewhere else later? Somewhere to be alone maybe. To see if 'something' would happen again.

She fought the feeling of depression that thought brought.

When she got to the apartment she found her dad sprawled out on the couch watching t.v. by himself.

"Hey, kiddo," he greeted, not moving from corner of the couch where he was half reclining on the mound of cushions he'd piled up.

"Hey, Dad," she replied, slipping off her jacket and dropping to sit down beside him.

"How was your date? Did you have a good time?"

Riley shrugged unsurely. "I guess. It was alright." Glancing toward the empty kitchen, she asked, "Where's Mom?"

"Getting ready for bed. At least, that's what she said." He leaned toward her and lowered his voice conspiratorially. "I think she just didn't like my choice of entertainment."

Riley smiled faintly and looked to see what he was watching. It was that reality show about that duck family with the big beards. The ones who lived in Arkansas or somewhere like that.

She didn't really have any interest in it either, but she stayed there with her dad anyway. Just like at the movies, she stopped taking in what was happening on the screen after a time, but she still stayed. Her mood was somber and she just felt like being with him.

After a few minutes she leaned into his side and tucked her feet up beside her on the couch cushion.

Cory looked down at her in surprise- it had been a long time since she'd wanted to cuddle up with her daddy- but immediately put his arm around her and pulled her in close.

"Everything okay? I don't need to have a talk with Mr. Gardener about anything do I?" he questioned with mild suspicion.

The corner of her lip turning up, Riley shook her head, her cheek brushing against his shirt. "No, Dad. He was a perfect gentleman. Charlie's a good guy."

"You don't sound particularly happy about that."

"It just—seems like it makes things even more confusing," she admitted.

And it was true. Adding Charlie into the mix had only seemed to complicate things further.

He _was_ a nice guy. She ought to be able to feel for him the same way she felt about Lucas. Obviously, she didn't, but could she learn to? She should be willing to at least try. It would be the best thing for everyone if she moved on. But she was afraid to. If Charlie became her boyfriend she was afraid it would change things too much. Lucas had told her tonight that he couldn't be her brother, and if they didn't have that tie to bind them closely together she was worried that they might drift too far apart. She was already feeling like something had shifted so fundamentally between them that it was almost like she'd lost some part of him. If she started spending a lot of time with another boy it would put that much more distance between them, wouldn't it?

And what about Charlie? Was it even fair to drag him into all this knowing she didn't like him the way he liked her and there was only a possibility that she might be able to someday?

Riley didn't know. She wasn't sure what the right thing was anymore.

Sighing, she turned her face into her dad's chest. Being curled up against him like this reminded her of when she was little. Whenever she was hurt or upset about something she used to climb up in his lap, pour out what was bothering her, and beg him to make it right. Back then it had been things like she couldn't find Mr. Wuffles, or Marcy Grammar made fun of her bike, or she wasn't sure she wanted a little brother. Now things weren't nearly so simple, but she wondered whimsically if he still had the same Dad Power.

A smile playing around her lips, she said the same words she'd said back then. "Fix it for me, Daddy."

Cory chuckled reminiscently and gave her an affectionate squeeze. "I wish I could, sweetie," he said regretfully, kissing the crown of her head. "But I'm afraid you're gonna have to figure this one out yourself."


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

Farkle paid the cab driver then climbed from the backseat of the car. He didn't linger on the sidewalk but headed straight for his destination. He'd been to Lucas's house enough times now to be familiar with his neighborhood, and it wasn't a bad neighborhood by any means, but that still didn't mean he felt completely safe walking around it at night by himself.

It wasn't Lucas's house he was headed for this time. He'd texted ahead to see if his best friend would be where he'd thought he might be before making the trip over from Topanga's. He'd given Lucas enough time to see Maya home after the two of them had left the cafe themselves. They'd cut their night short, not that Farkle could blame them. Their date hadn't gone very well, judging by what he'd seen of it, and he'd thought Lucas might stop off at the tiny park a few blocks from his house instead of going straight home afterwards.

It wasn't much of a park, really. Just a few trees, some swings, and a makeshift basketball court. Lucas had told him once that he caught a game of pick-up there every once in awhile and it was a place he went to sometimes when he needed to be alone. Farkle was taking the chance that he might want to talk rather than be alone right now.

There was a bench over to one side of the court, and Farkle found him there, perched on the edge of its seat, leaning forward with his forearms braced on splayed thighs. He looked dejected, Farkle couldn't help but think, as he silently approached the bench.

"I thought this might be where you'd be," he said by way of greeting.

Lucas's head jerked up at the sound of his voice and he acknowledged him with a shadow of a smile

"Yeah, I just...needed to think," he replied as Farkle sat down beside him and mirrored his pose.

The two boys shared a moment of contemplative silence.

Lucas was the one to break it. "How did things get so messed up, Farkle?" he asked with a slight shake of his head. "I mean, it was just last week that I was walking Riley to practice after school and Maya was mocking us for looking like the stereotypical jock with a cheerleader girlfriend. Now, the girl I thought I was falling in love with has effectively dumped me, and practically the next day wants me to move on with her best friend." His expression was baffled. "That's messed up, right? If nothing else, it goes against some kind of girl code or something, doesn't it?"

The corner of Farkle's lips lifted in a lopsided smile. "You think Riley's going to follow some code if it's not what she thinks is right? Riley has her own code."

Lucas gave a little huff of laughter that sounded somewhat sad. "Yeah, that's definitely true."

Farkle watched as his friend seemed to study his loosely folded hands, sympathy stirring his heart. "So you were falling in love with her?" he asked quietly.

Lucas sighed. "I thought I was. I mean, I know we're young. And we decided we weren't even ready for dating after we tried it last time. But I thought we kinda had an understanding. You know? That we were just waiting until we got a little older and got a little more comfortable with the idea and then we'd try again. I thought that was where we stood, but then the whole fiasco with the dance happened, and _Charlie Gardner,"_ the name was said with a bitter twist, "came swoopin' in outta nowhere. And now she's going on an actual _date_ with the guy when she told _me_ she wasn't ready for that," he ended on a note of hurt and anger, his face still turned downward.

"Well, in all fairness, it didn't really sound like it was going to be much of a date if the rules were that they couldn't hold hands or even talk," Farkle pointed out, trying to make him feel better.

Lucas conceded the point with a tilt of his head, silently acknowledging that that was something at least. And he really couldn't say anything about it when he, himself had been having a non-hand-holding, non-talking date.

"Now, on top of all that there's Maya." Lucas shook his head. "It's hard for me to believe she even likes me. I know what we do is all in fun, that thing where she makes fun of me and I act like it doesn't get to me. And it is fun. I mean, I wouldn't keep doing it if I didn't get a kick out of it." He smiled fondly. "But still...she mocks everything about me- where I come from, the way I do things- how is it possible that underneath all that she really likes me?"

He looked at Farkle as if he could provide him answers, but Farkle could only shrug. He hadn't really seen that one coming either. He thought he knew both girls pretty well, but when Riley had told Lucas that Maya liked him that night by the campfire Farkle would've thought she was joking if she hadn't been so dead serious when she'd said it.

In retrospect, he thought maybe it made sense. Maya would never have allowed herself to have feelings for the boy her best friend liked, so maybe the way she'd acted toward Lucas had been her way of keeping a distance from him. Maybe she mocked all those things about him because she was trying to keep herself from admiring them.

He didn't have a chance to say any of those things to Lucas though because the other boy had started talking again.

"Of course, I only have Riley's word for it that Maya does like me. She's never admitted it to me herself. Not that I think Riley would lie about it or anything, but I might've thought she'd gotten it wrong or something except- Maya did agree to go on a date with me."

"Yeah, how'd that happen so quickly?" Farkle asked curiously.

Lucas sighed again. "It was my fault really. It made me kind of crazy when Riley told Charlie she'd go out with him," he confessed. Adding with a helpless shrug, "I just don't get how she could go from what I thought we had together last week to deciding she only thinks of me like a brother. And then the next day she's dating someone else. Honestly it ticked me off a little. So I decided if she can dismiss what I thought we had and move on so fast, so can I. So I asked Maya out."

Regret stole over his features. "I think it was a mistake though. I did it for all the wrong reasons. And even though Riley's made it clear we're only friends now, it still felt wrong to be going out with her best friend. I know she's all but given us her permission, and it's obvious she wants us to give it a chance and see what happens, but... Maya and I just feel so uncomfortable with the whole thing. Without our little game we don't even seem to know how to talk to each other. We've never really had a meaningful conversation that I can remember. The things I know about her personally is stuff I've picked up from being around her, or it came from you and Riley. It's not like Maya told them to me. So... I just don't know what to say to her. I feel like if I try to say anything serious or personal about myself she'll only make fun of me for it or I'll end up with smoothie over my head," he said wryly, making Farkle snicker. "And I don't know how to get her to let her guard down enough to say anything real to me either."

"It takes a while to gain Maya's trust," Farkle agreed with a nod. "I've been after her and Riley since the first grade, and it wasn't until last year that I felt like she truly let me in and see the real Maya. And even then, it wasn't all the time."

Looking at the smaller boy, a sudden thought occurred to Lucas. And it made him feel like a bad friend for not thinking of it before now.

"Does it bother you to talk about them like this?" he asked worriedly. "I mean, you've been in love with them both for forever. Are you okay with everything that's happening?"

Lucas had always thought it was a testament to Farkle's good nature that he'd never held a grudge against him for catching Riley's eye in the first place, considering Farkle had sort of wanted her for himself. Not only had he not held a grudge, but he'd welcomed Lucas into their group from the beginning and had become one of his closest friends. He thought maybe the fact that he'd still had his 'other one' to pursue might've helped with that. But now she seemed to be expressing an interest in Lucas, too. If both the girls he loved had picked his best friend over him how could he possibly not resent Lucas for that?

But it didn't seem as though he did as he answered Lucas's question with a smile.

"If this had happened last year, I'm not gonna lie, I probably would've been pretty upset. But now that I've got Isadora everything's different. I do still love Maya and Riley, but I guess I love them more like a brother would."

Lucas groaned. "Please don't say love like a brother," he complained, "If I hear it one more time I might have to rip my ears off or something."

Farkle chuckled. "She has said it a couple hundred times this past week, hasn't she? Makes you wonder who exactly she's trying to convince."

Farkle bit his lip as his eyes darted over to Lucas. He hadn't meant to say that, it had just slipped out. And it came perilously close to spilling Riley's secret, which he'd agreed not to do for the time being.

But when Lucas murmured a considering, "Yeah," and fell deep into thought, Farkle decided it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if he did figure it out.

Riley had said she needed some time before confessing her feelings herself. But it seemed to Farkle that it would be more fair to everyone involved if they all knew exactly how each other felt. You can't make an informed decision without all the facts, but Riley seemed insistent that Maya and Lucas decide what they wanted to be to each other without considering her role in it at all. It wouldn't be a sound decision though. Once her true feelings came out they might come to regret what they'd decided and everyone would end up hurt. So if Lucas figured it out, Farkle couldn't regret giving it away even though he'd promised.

Lucas was on his way towards figuring it out, though he didn't know it. What Farkle had said had sent his thoughts churning and he was suddenly questioning things though.

Was it suspicious that Riley had sort of harped on the brother thing the way Farkle's words had seemed to suggest? Could it be possible that it wasn't completely true that that was what she was feeling and she was trying to convince herself of it just as much as she was him? He couldn't believe she would blatantly lie to him about it, but if she was lying to herself first, she might not even see it as a lie.

He needed to pay more attention and see if she gave any hints that what he was thinking was true. He hadn't seen evidence of it this past week, but he hadn't had any reason to doubt then, and he might not have been looking close enough.

"So how did you leave things with Maya? Were you guys able to talk after you left Topanga's earlier?" Farkle inquired.

Lucas emitted a dry note of laughter. "No. Not a single word. I thought it might take some of the pressure off if no one was watching us, but it doesn't seem like anything takes the pressure off. And I'm honestly not sure where we left things. We pretty much just said thank you and goodbye when I left her at her door. So I guess whatever it is we've been this past week that's what we still are. At least until we can talk about it and one of us says different. And I don't see that happening any time soon," he said with an ironic thread of laughter, shaking his head.

Farkle's lips twisted in sympathy, but he had to ask. "You don't think you should tell her that you think it was a mistake to ask her out?"

"Do you?" Lucas looked at him a bit wide-eyed, hints of disbelief, fear, and honest inquiry in his gaze.

"It's the truth, isn't it? That's what you said."

"Well, yeah, but I don't want to hurt her. Maya's my friend, if nothing else."

"You never know though, she might be thinking it was a mistake, too. You won't know that unless you ask her."

"True. But if she's not thinking that, me saying it would only hurt her," he brought the point back around, showing that it was a circular argument.

Farkle made a face of exasperation. "Then the way I see it you only have two options: ask her out again or try and act like the first date never happened."

"Or, there's a third option," Lucas offered hopefully, "Just wait and see what she does next."

Farkle gave him a look of dawning understanding. "You're afraid of her."

Lucas looked like he wanted to deny it, then confessed the obvious. "Yes, I'm afraid of her, are you trying to say you're not?"

"Yeah, she can be scary," the other boy conceded, "but that's just her tough act. That's not really who she is. You know that, don't you?"

"Yes, I know it, but the trouble is, the tough act is usually all I get. That, or the teasing."

"That's not what you've been getting this week," Farkle pointed out.

"No," he agreed with a negative movement of his head. "But the Maya who's been around this week has hardly seemed like Maya at all. The only time she's really seemed like herself has been when she was around you or Riley. And I miss the Maya that was my friend. I hate what this is doing to us."

"You should tell her that."

"You think she'd listen?" Lucas asked tiredly.

"You'll never know unless you try," he pointed out again. "And you're gonna have to be the first to talk, Lucas, she won't ever do it."

The other boy looked both bleak and apprehensive at the prospect.

"So strap on a pair and go face the scary blonde," he encouraged with cheerful vigor. "She's only 5'1", you can take her."

Lucas laughed. "Yeah, but what she lacks in height she makes up for in teeth."

"Eh, her bark is worse than her bite," the smaller boy waved the concern away.

"Nooo. Actually her bark _has_ bite," Lucas jokingly corrected.

"Yeah," Farkle agreed with an affectionate chuckle. "That's why we love her."

Lucas fondly agreed.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

After Lucas's conversation with Farkle he had every intention of talking to Maya at school on Monday. He'd thought about what he was going to say all weekend. (When he hadn't been thinking about Riley, wondering how her date had gone and whether she'd made any more plans with Charlie.)

But when he got to school there never seemed to be a good time to talk. You needed privacy for a conversation like that, you couldn't have it in the middle of a classroom, and there wasn't much privacy anywhere else at school either. Plus, Maya hadn't even mentioned their date herself, and he didn't want to rock the boat. So he put it off. And he didn't feel like a coward for doing it. Really.

They'd made it to art class, mid-way through the day, and there'd been no talk about anybody's dates Friday night. He was sure the girls had had plenty of discussion about them at home in Riley's bay window, but no one had mentioned them here at school, at least not in front of him.

Even though he was dying to know what had happened with Riley and Charlie he hadn't had a chance to ask her about it without everyone around. And he didn't want to ask in front of their friends. He didn't want to open himself up to whatever Zay might have to say about it, and he didn't want to seem overly interested about it to any of them.

They were all in the same art class together, but when he saw Riley go over to the supply cabinets by herself he decided to go talk to her.

She'd been pretty quiet around him all day. And the punching, nudges, and brother stuff had completely stopped. He guessed it was because he'd told her he couldn't be her brother anymore.

He couldn't say he was sorry to see the arm punching go, (she hit pretty hard for such a little girl) but he did miss all the other touching she'd been doing lately. He wasn't sure if she'd even been aware of how often she'd had her hands on him somewhere ever since she'd announced her new lack of nervousness around him. But he'd certainly been aware of all the playful slaps, the leaning into him, and putting her head on his shoulder. The intentions and the seeming carelessness behind the gestures had frustrated him, but the touching itself...well, he could get used to that.

Actually he **had** gotten used to it, just from the last week. Because now that she didn't seem to be doing it anymore he wished for it back.

She was standing on one of the low stools they used for seats, searching the upper cabinets, when he walked over to her. She was wearing one of those wispy-looking dresses that he liked so much and a tall pair of boots with high heels. He'd noticed that the extra height they gave her made her nearly as tall as him. He really liked how tall she'd grown this past year, it made them seem to fit together even better.

But he wasn't supposed to think about things like that.

"Looking for the purple?" he teased as he came up behind her seat.

He hadn't meant to sneak up on her, but her startlement was obvious in the gasp that was wrenched from her when she twisted sharply around. The teasing grin on his face quickly turned to horror as she suddenly started to fall from her tall perch.

One minute Riley was trying to find where Ms. Kossal had hidden her favorite paint and the next, Lucas's voice was startling her from her preoccupation with the cabinet's contents. She spun around jerkily in her fright, and what came next happened almost too fast for her to process. The stool wobbled dangerously beneath her, her heel caught, twisting her ankle and tangling her feet, and suddenly she was plunging towards the floor.

"Riley!" she heard Lucas cry in alarm as he lunged in her direction.

She wasn't sure what kind of sound flew from her own mouth. But whatever it was, it was short-lived because in the next instant Lucas caught her.

His chest wasn't nearly as hard as the floor she'd been expecting to hit, but her breath came rushing out of her anyway.

The suddenness of finding herself basically wrapped in Lucas's arms was a whole different kind of startlement. Their eyes collided in surprise then fell away as they tried to right themselves.

She'd fallen forward from the stool and her feet were still tangled together, with her toes barely touching the seat. His hands splayed on the upper and lower parts of her back, he tightened his grip to get her clear from the stool and give her a chance to untangle herself. Her own hands had found purchase on his shoulder and upper arm, and her fingers instinctively clenched when he pulled her free. For one second she was held tight against him, and once she'd gotten her feet adjusted, he loosened his hold to let her slide towards the floor.

Their eyes caught again as she slid down his front, the friction generating a surprising amount of heat. Were there sparks? Because she felt like there were sparks. And her heart was pounding a mile a minute.

The entire incident seemed like it lasted long minutes, but in reality it was a matter of seconds. While Lucas was guiding her slow descent to the floor it felt like they were locked in their own world. But they were brought abruptly back to the present when someone asked Riley if she was alright. Suddenly aware that the entire class was watching, they grew flustered and their movements became jerky. Riley pushed away from his chest at the same time that Lucas hastily loosened his arms, and she dropped the last inch or so to the floor gracelessly.

The minute her feet made impact though, she cried out and almost fell again when her ankle refused to support her weight. Lucas had been in the process of withdrawing his arms but they surged back up and grabbed her, saving her from the floor once again.

"Riley, what's wrong?" he asked with a frown, everyone else immediately forgotten.

"I'm not sure," she replied thickly, "I think I might've twisted my ankle."

Her friends had all rushed over, and a few other classmates came over to circle around her, too.

"Is it okay? Can you walk on it?" Maya asked, her brow furrowed with concern.

Riley had balanced herself against Lucas with one hand hanging on to his shoulder, and she was bent at the waist, with her other hand instinctively reaching for her ankle. At Maya's question she straightened slightly and gingerly put her foot back on the floor to test its ability to hold her weight.

She crumpled immediately, and was unable to hold back another small cry. She caught herself by clutching at Lucas's forearm with her free hand, but his arms around her waist weren't letting her go anywhere anyway.

"I don't think so," Riley shook her head in distress, "It really hurts."

Ms. Kossal chose that moment to come back into the classroom. Seeing all the students gathered at one side of the room, she dropped the papers she was carrying onto her desk and hurried over.

"What happened?" she asked, gently moving people aside so she could get through and see.

"She fell and twisted her ankle," Maya told her, resting her hand comfortingly on her best friend's back.

The teacher's eyes fell to take in the stool and the cabinets it sat in front of and immediately deduced what had happened.

Giving Riley an exasperated, stern sort of look, she said, "We'll talk about safety issues later, but right now we need to get you to the nurse's office." Her expression gentling, she stretched out her arm in an ushering motion that also had the effect of clearing a path for her.

"I can take her," Lucas volunteered immediately, letting go of her with one arm so he could turn with her and be her support.

"Okay, just be careful," Ms. Kossal cautioned. "Try not to strain it any further."

"Take care of her, Huckleberry," Maya added, catching Riley's hand as she moved past her to hobble across the room.

Riley held it for a moment, giving it a quick squeeze, and dropped it as she and Lucas picked their way to the door. She could still barely stand to put any weight on it at all so she was basically hopping on one foot while he supported her with an arm around her back. Her arm was around his shoulder and she was leaning heavily on him as they made their way out into the hall.

"You okay?" he checked, after they'd gone a few feet down the empty corridor.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she gritted out, her voice tight with pain.

Lucas looked over at her and the grimace on her face spoke of the strain she was under.

"You don't look fine," he said worriedly. "Let's rest for a minute, okay?"

He guided her over to the lockers against one wall and they leaned there to let her catch her breath.

"I'm so sorry about this, Riley," he told her remorsefully, and Riley looked up at him in surprise.

"Why are you sorry? You didn't do anything."

"I came up behind you and scared you. That wasn't what I meant to do at all."

"Lucas, I know that," she assured him. "This was just an accident. If it was anyone's fault it was mine. I shouldn't have been up on the stool."

"Still. You probably wouldn't have fallen if it hadn't been for me. I really am sorry."

"It's okay," she dismissed, trying to absolve him.

But Lucas couldn't so easily let himself off the hook. She was in serious pain right now and it was all his fault. He should've never gone over to her in the first place.

"I think I'm ready to go on now," Riley said after another minute or so.

Lucas straightened from the lockers and readjusted his arm around her waist. "Just lean all your weight on me if you have to," he encouraged as he got them moving again.

She did as he suggested, giving him almost all of her weight, then wobbled along in a hopping gait beside him. The heel of her boot clopped against the floor in an unsteady rhythm, echoing through the quiet hallway.

After only a few more yards Riley was breathing as heavily as if she'd just run a mile. When every step started eliciting a small pant, Lucas tried to stop them again.

"Let's take another rest," he suggested, his concerned gaze taking in the pain that was contorting her face again.

"No," Riley stubbornly refused. "If we keep doing that it'll take forever to get there."

"Come on, Riley, just for a little bit. I can tell it's really hurting."

He wasn't wrong. Holding up her hurt ankle nearly parallel with the floor was making it throb intensely, and every step was jarring it agonizingly. But she just wanted to get the nurse's office where she could sit, and it was already taking way too long to get there.

"Just keep going," she told him breathlessly as she kept pressing on.

When a few more steps were behind them Lucas tried again. "Let's just stop for a few seconds. A few seconds won't make much difference, right?"

Riley went on for several more steps then finally gave in. "Okay, maybe just a few seconds," she agreed.

Relieved, Lucas steered her over to the lockers once more. Her eyes closed as she sank back against them, and he watched unhappily as she exhaled heavily through her nose, her forehead furrowed with discomfort.

"Would it help if we took off your boots?" he proposed, wanting only to relieve some of her pain. "The heels on them are pretty high and you seem a little unsteady with just the one."

"Yeah, maybe," she assented, and he instantly went down on his knee to help her get them off.

He tugged down the zipper on the one that encased her good foot, but couldn't figure out how to get her out of it while that foot was supporting her. "Can you slide down and sit on the floor for a minute?" he offered as a solution.

Riley awkwardly tried to maneuver herself down while holding her hurt foot aloft, but it was difficult to get the leg she was supporting herself with out from under her.

"Here, hold onto me," Lucas directed, catching her hand and placing it on his shoulder as he knelt.

Using him as a support, she finally managed to get down to the floor with her legs stretched out in front of her. It felt good to sit, but it was probably going to be awfully hard getting back up. She helped Lucas tug off the boot he'd unzipped, then he carefully slid down the zipper on the other one. She thought it would feel good to get her ankle free from the constraint of the boot, but first they had to get it off.

"You ready?" he looked up at her inquiringly, hesitantly taking hold of it at the heel and toe.

Riley nodded and braced herself, but she was unprepared for the intensity of the pain that shot through her leg with his first gentle pull.

"Wait! Lucas, stop, stop, stop!" she gasped out, her hand flying out blindly and catching him on the shoulder. Her fingers clutched at a handful of his shirt as she bit back a sob, and she hid her face in her outstretched arm. "Ohhh, my gosh, that hurt so much," she whimpered.

Lucas had jerked his hand from her boot as if it had burned him, and his face twisted with sympathetic pain. "Riley, I'm so sorry. That was such a bad idea," he lamented.

With her entire lower leg throbbing in white-hot pain, she had to agree with him. But she didn't want him to feel guilty about it. "It's okay," she breathed, "just give me a minute."

He silently complied, sitting stock still without shifting an inch, his only movement the slow, soothing stroke of his hand up and down her back as they waited it out.

She concentrated on the steadying comfort of that touch until the severity of the throbbing subsided a tiny bit. Raising her head from her arm, she blew out a long controlled breath.

Lifting wet eyes to his, she said huskily, "I think that one needs to stay on."

"Yeah, I think you're right," he replied dolefully, his heart clenching at the sight of her tears. "I'm sorry, Riley, we shouldn't have tried that." His voice was thick with self-reproach.

He knew from past experience with his own sports injuries that the boot was going to have to come off, but he wasn't going to be the one to do it. He'd rather rip his own arm off than to cause her pain like that again.

"Not your fault," she told him again, giving a shake of her head.

But he didn't believe it this time either. It was completely his fault that she was hurting like this, and it was killing him to see her in pain. He'd trade places with her in a heartbeat if he could.

"We need to hurry up and get you to the nurse," he resolved. "She can give you something for the pain."

"I have to admit, that sounds pretty good right now. But I'm not sure I can get up off this floor," she admitted.

Determination hardening his feature, Lucas moved from her feet and got to one knee next to her hip.

"What are you doing?" Riley asked in confusion.

She was only answered by his silent movements as he slipped an arm under her knees and the other one behind her back.

"Lucas!" she protested, realizing what he was doing.

But the resolution didn't waver from his face. "Grab your shoe," he instructed before lifting her.

She snatched up the boot that was lying beside her and in the next instant he was climbing to his feet with her in his arms.

Her breath caught when they were upright, but not because of her ankle. He did this little bouncing thing to get her adjusted more securely in the crooks of his arms, and his show of strength sort of took her breath away.

Lucas misinterpreted the small hitch in her breath and ceased all movement immediately. "Did I hurt you?" he asked worriedly.

Riley only shook her head silently. Their eyes met, and the admiring, nearly transfixed look he found in hers made him swallow. He suddenly became aware of just how close together their faces were.

"Are you okay?" he rasped out.

She gave him another silent answer, this time nodding her head yes.

Given the okay, Lucas cleared his throat and started walking. He'd forgotten for a moment that he was trying to hurry and get her to the nurse. Remembering now, he picked up his pace, but his eyes kept straying toward Riley.

That look she'd given him had made his heart pound. There was no way that had been the kind of look that would come from a friend. Was there? Without question, it hadn't been a sisterly kind of look. He hadn't forgotten to be looking for evidence that her feelings for him weren't what she said they were. This had surely been a clue that he was right about that, hadn't it?

And there was also that moment they'd had after he'd caught her when she fell. There had been definite...feelings going on when their eyes had locked. Feelings that had been kind of electric. And she'd been feeling them too, he was sure of it. Surely she couldn't keep lying to herself about what she felt after _that,_ could she?

Riley had been shaken from her daze the moment Lucas had started moving. She'd broken eye contact with him, suddenly feeling flustered. They were too close. Him carrying her felt too intimate somehow. And it felt wrong to have her arm around his neck.

It was like she'd just woken up and the things that her pain had overshadowed earlier were suddenly filling her head. Hanging all over him when she was testing her ankle and trying to walk, the way he'd caught her up tight against him, the way their eyes had held when he'd been helping her down.

That hadn't felt brother and sister-like. That hadn't even felt platonic friend-like. And she was afraid that it probably hadn't looked that way to anyone on the outside either.

And Maya had been one of those on the outside, watching.

 _Oh no._ Maya had seen all that. What must she be thinking? Riley wondered, feeling sick. It had been an accident. The whole thing could be seen as completely innocent, couldn't it? Except for the look, she couldn't let herself forget. And the sparks. But no one could see the sparks, could they? Those had only been felt.

Had Lucas felt them? she suddenly wondered. She darted a look at him in question, and her eyes immediately became caught in the muted hazel-green of his.

Why did that keep happening? she wondered in distress.

"I need you to put me down, Lucas."

The thought of Maya seeing them right now had her wondering what the other girl would think. Would she think it was totally understandable that he would carry her? Or would she see it as the betrayal Riley was now feeling like it was.

"Why?" He jerked to a halt. "Am I hurting you?"

"N-no. I just..." She looked at him, shaking her head slightly. "You can't..." Her gaze dropped to his chest, and a crease appeared between her brows. "We just shouldn't."

Lucas just looked at her in confusion. "We shouldn't what?"

Riley made a sound of frustration. "We shouldn't.. _this_." She made a gesture that encompassed the two of them.

He searched her face, trying to make the connection in what she was saying. "Are you saying we shouldn't be going to the nurse's office? Or I shouldn't be carrying you there?"

"You shouldn't be carrying me. Not when I can walk."

It seemed odd to him that she was objecting to it at this point. The only reason he could come up with for her to do it was that it didn't have anything to do with her ankle, but had more to do with the look she'd just given him and what he suspected it meant she was feeling.

"Riley," he said, testing his theory, "I'm just helping a friend, here. My friend is hurt, and I'm taking her to get some help. There's not anything more going on here than that is there?" He looked at her piercingly. "Is there, Riley?"

Riley met his eyes for a brief moment, but hers immediately fell away. Gaze lowered, she said quietly, "Please, Lucas, just put me down."

It wasn't an outright admission, but the fact that she hadn't just said 'of course that's all this is' made it seem to him that he might not be entirely wrong in his suspicions.

Responding to her subdued tone, Lucas spoke with equal softness. "We're almost there now, Riley. This is so much faster and easier on you. Please just let me get you there."

Riley bit her lip. What he said was true, this _was_ faster and easier on her, and her ankle was still throbbing terribly. Those were all completely innocent reasons for him to carry her, so maybe no one would think any more of it than that. Not even Maya.

"Fine," she conceded lowly. "Can we please just hurry though?"

To her relief, Lucas merely nodded and started walking again. They really were close to the nurse's office, and in under a minute he had her there.

When they walked in the door, Mrs. Parkman, the school nurse, abruptly got up from her chair, saying, "Oh, my, what's happened?" When she realized who the tall, muscular boy was cradling against his chest, she sighed. "Riley Matthews. What have you done now, child? It's not time for cheerleading practice, is it?"

"No, Mrs. Parkman. I just fell and twisted my ankle," Riley sheepishly replied. She'd been in her office often enough that the elderly nurse knew her on sight now.

She tsked at Riley's answer and put a hand on Lucas's arm to direct him to the back section of her office and one of the padded vinyl cots set up there. "I'm starting to think of this cot as yours, you know."

"I have my own cot," Riley told Lucas as he bent to gently lay her down on it's surface.

As he rose back up, his lips twisted humorously. "I'm not sure that's something to be happy about."

"I should say not," Mrs. Parkman put in grumpily. "You're in here far too often, young lady. You'll end up breaking your neck one of these days," she ended on a mutter as she sat in the chair she'd pulled to the end of the cot. "Let's see what kind of damage you've done now." She nudged her glasses into place then reached for Riley's foot.

"We tried to get the boot off before we got here but it hurt her too much, so we had to stop," Lucas said quickly before the nurse could touch the boot herself.

"You did, hm? Well, let's take a look." She probed around the opening at the bottom of the boot's zipper, which was an inch or two above Riley's ankle and wasn't allowing her full access to the injury.

As she shone a penlight inside the opened halves of leather, she started muttering again. "You young girls and your footwear these days." Shaking her head, she gently explored the ankle through the boot as best she could, making Riley wince and clench her teeth.

Lucas watched the proceedings silently, his gaze moving between the nurse's actions and Riley's face. When a particularly painful probe of her fingers made Riley grimace and gasp, he winced right along with her and squatted down by her side to put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"Yeah, there's a lot of swelling. Sorry about that," the white-haired nurse apologized gruffly for hurting her. "You got this just from falling over?" she asked in disbelief.

"Well..." Riley hedged, then confessed, "I was standing on a stool at the time."

The elderly woman tsked again and shook her head. "What on earth were you thinking, child? You need to learn to be more careful."

"Sorry," Riley replied in a small voice that made Lucas want to wrap his arms around her. He settled for giving her shoulder a small squeeze.

"Yes, well, we're going to have to get this boot off. It's restricting the blood flow and I can't assess your ankle properly with it on."

When Riley's expression turned apprehensive, she patted the young girl's knee in a conciliatory fashion. "I'll give you something for the pain, and we can wait a bit until that kicks in before we try, okay?"

"Okay." Riley nodded in relief.

Mrs. Parkman crossed the room and disappeared momentarily behind a partition. There were several small noises as she moved around back there, then the sound of running water. When she came back she was carrying a small paper cup holding two tablets and a larger plastic cup filled with water.

She handed both to Riley, saying, "We'll give these fifteen minutes or so, they should be working by then, and then we'll see what we can do." She brought a cushion over from the other cot and had Riley lift her foot so she could place it under her ankle. "This should help with the swelling, too." That done, her gaze shifted to Lucas.

Fearing that he was about to be dismissed, he quickly stood and asked, "Is it okay if I wait with her? Maybe I can help, or at least be her moral support, when you take off the boot."

She looked at him for a minute like she could see right through his flimsy reasoning, but then her eyes went from him to Riley and she softened slightly. "I don't guess missing fifteen more minutes of class would hurt too much. You can stay and keep her company while I get a report filled out."

He thanked her while she was taking the empty cups from Riley's hands, then she left them and went back up front to sit at her desk.

"That's okay, isn't it? For me to stay?" he asked Riley hastily, realizing that he might have been presumptuous. "If you'd rather I just go..." he trailed off, motioning toward the door.

"No, you can stay," she told him hesitantly.

She had every reason to let him go. She was still feeling a little self-conscious, vulnerable, and conflicted about what had happened out in the hall. And it was probably selfish of her to keep him with her, but she was afraid that even with the pain killers she'd taken, the swelling in her ankle was going to make removing her boot really unpleasant. And it had helped so much to have him there when they'd attempted to do it earlier. So even though she shouldn't, she wanted him to stay.

She wanted it and yet she was leery of it at the same time. She wasn't sure what she'd given away out there with her crazy behavior and the last thing she wanted was for him to start questioning her about it. She was hoping that since Mrs. Parkman was within earshot of them he wouldn't bring it up.

It looked promising when he asked instead, "Are you comfortable? Do you need anything?"

"No. I'm okay," she replied.

"Well, let me know if I can get you anything," he said, moving a chair over to the side of her cot and taking a seat. "Are the pills doing anything yet? Is it feeling any better?" He gestured toward her ankle.

"Yeah, a little bit, maybe. I'm not sure if it's the pills or not, but it's not throbbing quite as much."

"Propping it up probably helped it a lot. I sprained my ankle playing basketball once when I was in fifth grade, and I remember it always felt better when I could get it propped up on something."

"You sprained your ankle? Was it bad?"

"I had to use crutches for the first week or so after it happened, and it took five weeks before they'd let me get back on the basketball court. So yeah, it was pretty bad."

Riley made a sympathetic face then asked anxiously, "Do you think mine's sprained?"

"I don't know. I wouldn't think what you did could have twisted it hard enough to sprain, but I guess there's no way to know for sure until you get that boot off. Putting your foot up should help a little with the swelling, so it shouldn't hurt as much to pull it off this time."

Seeing a return of his regret over their earlier attempt forming in his eyes, she tried to waylay it with humor. "If I'd known I was gonna be such a klutz today I would've picked a different pair of shoes to wear this morning."

Lucas smiled faintly. "I'm pretty sure this wasn't from you being a klutz. It happened because some jerk snuck up behind you and scared you half to death."

Riley gave him a look that was mildly chiding. "Well I never saw this jerk you're talking about, but if you happen to see him again you can tell him that my friend Lucas has already apologized for that and I told him that it was never his fault in the first place." When she saw that he was still refusing to forgive himself she added, "Seriously, Lucas. It shouldn't have scared me like it did for you to just come up behind me and say something like that. It's not like you grabbed me and shouted boo. I guess...my mind was just somewhere else when you came up. Lately, it's been doing that a lot."

"Yeah, I know exactly what you mean."

Riley looked at him and their eyes held each other's meaningfully. She could see that he did know what she was talking about. And she was afraid he was about to ask her something in relation to that that she really wasn't going to want to answer.

Thankfully, Mrs. Parkman walked in at that moment, saying, "Alright, let's get that shoe off and see what we've got."

The two teenagers turned to look at her, one with a face full of relief and the other in mild frustration.

Lucas had been about to ask her what was on her mind so much lately, hoping that it would lead to some significant answers. He was disappointed to lose his chance.

But Riley's injury was more important so he put it aside.

After examining the injured ankle with a few preliminary touches of her fingers the nurse nodded. "I think the swelling may have gone down just a bit, so this shouldn't be too bad."

As assurances went it didn't make Riley feel entirely comforted. A bit apprehensively, she sat up on the cot so she could more easily brace herself.

Lucas changed position too, standing from his chair and hovering at Riley's side.

Mrs. Parkman took hold of the boot in much the same way as he had earlier, cupping the back of the heel in one hand and wrapping the other around the sole near the toe. When she started to try and ease it off, the first tug reawakened the pain in Riley's ankle and started it throbbing again. It was still swollen enough that it was resistant, and the longer it took for the nurse to work it free the more violently it pulsed, until Riley's entire lower leg felt like it was pounding.

Her hands clenched around the padding of the cot on either side of her and she was biting her lips to hold back the gasps that wanted to break free. Lucas's hand had started rubbing her back soothingly, just like he had in the hall. Riley tried to just concentrate on that the same as she had then.

"This would be so much easier if the zipper was longer," Mrs. Parkman said under her breath. "Can you try and point your toes for me?"

It hurt, but Riley obeyed, pointing her toe as much as she was able. And that seemed to do the trick. The boot slid off with the next pull. It was a huge relief to get it free, but it was still pulsing with a painful heat.

"There now. That's better, isn't it?" The elderly nurse patted her knee again and dropped the boot on the floor. "I imagine we got it pretty aggravated again though, didn't we?"

"Yeah, it's really throbbing," Riley confirmed.

"Well now that we've got that shoe off we can get some ice on it." She went over to the partition again and when she came out from behind it this time she had a packet in her hand. Crossing back over to her patient, she squeezed the packet between both hands to activate it, then placed it gently over the ankle so that it was covered from one side to the other. "We'll let that sit a little bit before I do anymore poking and prodding, alright?"

A phone rang from somewhere in the office, and Mrs. Parkman turned to go back up front to answer it.

"You okay?" Lucas asked when they were alone.

"I've been better," Riley replied with a weak laugh.

His hand, resting on her shoulder blade near her neck, gave her a comforting squeeze. "The ice pack should help," he reassured her.

Mrs. Parkman came back and started gathering some things together in a bag. Her movements were urgent and she spoke to them as she was packing. "There's been an accident in the gym. Someone's hurt and I need to go tend to him."

Her bag ready, she looked at both of them and hesitated.

"I'll stay here with her in case she needs anything," Lucas offered in assurance.

Nodding decisively, the nurse told him, "I'll write you a pass when I get back. And you," she pointed at Riley, "stay there and rest that ankle until I get back."

Without another word, she hurried out.

"Nice bedside manner," Lucas said wryly once she was gone.

"Yeah," Riley agreed on a huff of laughter. "I think really she likes me. I bring her a lot of repeat business and keep her from getting bored."

The claim made him chuckle affectionately. "How's it doing now?" he inquired, nodding towards her foot.

Riley nodded to indicate it was getting better. "Dying down to a dull roar."

"Good," he said with satisfaction. "Do you want to lie back down?"

"No, I'd rather sit." She looked behind her at the head of the cot which was tilted up at a slight angle much like a hospital bed. "Do you think this adjusts?"

The two of them looked it over, and after fiddling with it a bit, managed to adjust it manually so that it sat up more perpendicularly. The steeper angle more comfortably supported her back as she sat, and she leaned back into it with a sigh.

"Good?"

"Yeah. Thank you, Lucas."

"You're welcome," he replied warmly. "Can I do anything else? Get you anything?"

Her lips quirked teasingly. "I'm fine, Nurse Friar. Thank you."

Lucas smiled self-deprecatingly, then his expression turned severe and he pointed at her in mock-sternness. "Fine, then you sit there and rest that ankle."

"Yes, sir," she complied with a smirk.

They grinned at each other and then their eyes fell away, smiles still lingering on their lips. It was quiet for a moment, and Lucas realized that they were completely alone and could talk without interruption now.

"So. What were you saying earlier? That your mind's been somewhere else a lot?"

The question wiped any lingering traces of her smile away. "Yeah," she confirmed with reluctance, dismayed that he was bringing the subject back up. It worried her where it might lead.

"So what have you been thinking about so much?" he asked lightly.

Riley shrugged and said evasively, "I don't know. A lot of things. I just can't seem to concentrate on anything lately because there's so much going on in my head. Even on my date with Charlie the other night, my mind was wandering half the time."

Seizing on the opening she'd given him, he said nonchalantly, "Oh yeah, I haven't had a chance to ask you about that. How'd your date go with him?"

She shrugged again, doubtful that he wanted a lot of details. "It went alright, I guess. I sort of spaced on the movie, which wasn't cool, but Charlie was nice about it."

He ignored the testament to Charlie's niceness. "And did you have popcorn and licorice?"

"Yeah- well, he did. I just tried a bite of it."

Wrinkling his nose, he said, "It doesn't really sound like that great a combination, did you like it?"

"It was better than I thought it would be," she admitted.

"Better than chocolate?" he had to ask.

"No." She shook her head definitively. "Chocolate is definitely better."

Inwardly, Lucas smiled. He knew it was stupid to think that her preference for his favorite candy over Charlie's meant anything more in the scheme of things, but that didn't keep him from feeling smug over her choice.

Riley thought she saw some sort of satisfaction on Lucas's face and bit her lip. They _were_ still just talking about movie snacks, weren't they? She hadn't meant to imply anything when she said she liked chocolate better, but she was afraid maybe he'd taken it that way. And she didn't want him thinking that she was talking about anything more than candy.

"But who doesn't love chocolate?" she tacked on.

"Right," Lucas replied, feeling instantly deflated. So much for it meaning anything. He sighed.

"So, was there really no holding hands and no talking?" He tried to act as though that wasn't something he'd been wondering about for three days.

"There was _some_ talking," she contradicted. The conversation was starting to make her uncertain. She hadn't thought Lucas would want details but apparently she'd been wrong. She wasn't sure what to make of that. Were they just talking like friends? Or did his interest actually mean something else?

Suspecting that might be the case she tried redirecting things. "But I heard there wasn't any conversation at all on your date with Maya."

 _Maya._ Her best friend who was sitting in art class right now, probably wondering what was happening. How could she have forgotten about Maya? she demanded of herself, suddenly overcome with guilt.

Now that there was nothing else diverting her attention, her actions over the past thirty minutes became her sole train of thought, and Riley was deeply ashamed. Lucas was supposed to belong to Maya now and here she was making eyes at him, feeling sparks, and admiring his muscles. What was wrong with her? She'd betrayed her best friend, and she'd probably sent Lucas some kind of signals that she shouldn't have. She was a horrible friend.

"Yeah," Lucas admitted in a wincing drawl. "We pretty much sat there without saying a word. It probably wasn't much like a date, really."

"You're going to try again though, right?" she asked him, feeling the need to get things back on track.

"No," he answered slowly, "I wasn't planning to."

"Why?" she exclaimed, upset by this turn of events.

Lucas made a small sound of disbelief. "Because we were both awkward and uncomfortable that entire night, and we didn't say a word to each other. Does that sound like your idea of a good date?"

"You know it was just nervousness making it hard for you to talk to each other. It was the same with us," she pointed out. "But it'll get better, it has to, you just need to give it more time."

"More time, meaning more dating?" At her nod, his words bursted out of him in muted frustration. "Riley, that doesn't make sense! Maya and I **can't talk** ," he reiterated. "It wasn't nervousness, we just didn't know how. That's never been what she and I do."

"Then you'll figure it out. Come on, Lucas," she urged with an uncomfortable laugh. "Things are different now. We'll just need to make adjustments."

"Oh, adjustments?" His brows went up briefly and his chin went out in a head movement that was distinctly Lucas. "You mean adjustments like going from liking somebody one day to telling them that night they've become your brother? Or like going out with someone and deciding it was a mistake because you're not ready for dating, then going out with someone else a few months later and apparently it's fine? Those kind of adjustments?" he asked irritably.

Eyes on her lap in discomfort, Riley said quietly, "We weren't talking about me, we were talking about you and Maya."

"Right. Me and Maya and our adjustment to dating." He shook his head wordlessly and looked blindly across the room, not even sure what to say. "I just don't think it's a good idea for me to ask her out again." He looked at her in appeal.

"Why not?" she asked imploringly, desperate to make this right for Maya.

Lucas shook his head and confessed, "Because I don't think it's fair to Maya for me to be on a date with her when the whole time I'm thinking about you."

Riley met his gaze, her eyes wide, and he returned the look steadily.

"What?" she said faintly.

"Riley, that whole night Maya and I were at Topanga's not saying anything, I was sitting there wondering what you and Charlie were doing on _your_ date. I nearly drove myself crazy trying to imagine what you two were doing at that moment. Was he making you laugh? Were you telling him how you really like those cheerleader movies with all the sequels but Disney is your favorite? Was he getting to see how cute you are when you think you've laughed too loud at the movie and look around to see if anyone noticed?" Riley was looking at him in growing wonder, and he continued earnestly. "And what was gonna happen when he took you home and left you at your door? Would you shake hands, hug, were you gonna kiss him on the cheek? If he asked you out again would you smile and tell him yes, and I'd have to go through this all over again?"

"Lucas," she protested softly, shaking her head. She wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry.

But he just went on without stopping. "Those were the kind of things running through my head that night, Riley. And I knew I wasn't being fair to Maya, I kept trying to stop. But we weren't talking, we weren't doing anything except sitting in those chairs," he made a helpless gesture, "so my mind kept wandering right back there again."

Riley hadn't known it was possible to feel so elated and dismayed at the same time. Her heart was divided. It wanted to soar at the words he was confessing to her, but it wanted to break because this was ruining things for Maya. She wasn't sure what to say or do.

"Was...that the kind of things you were thinking about when your mind was wandering with Charlie?" he asked tentatively.

"N-not exactly," she replied. She did remember wondering at the end of the night if their date had turned out better than hers, but for the majority of the night, the gist of her thoughts hadn't really been like that.

"Oh." His gaze fell to the floor, disappointment evident in every line of his body.

His utter dejection cleaved her heart into yet another section and she couldn't stand it, not after all the amazing things he'd said about her.

"Mostly, he kept doing things that reminded me of stuff you'd said or done," she admitted. She knew she shouldn't have said it the moment it came out of her mouth. She shouldn't encourage him, this wasn't right.

And it was obvious that she had encouraged him when his head came up at her words and he repeated more happily, "Oh."

Immediately trying to explain it away, she said, "But that's probably normal when you go on a date, for things to happen that remind you of other dates you've been on. And since you're the only one I've ever gone out with..." She gestured toward him with upturned palms then spread them apart to affect a shrug as if that explained it. "And if you and Maya were talking, if you went out and did something like eat a meal at a real restaurant, or—I don't know, went bowling or something, your mind would be more occupied and you probably wouldn't think about me the way you did last time."

It took him a minute to get exactly what she was saying, and when he did, he looked at her incredulously. "You're saying you **still** think Maya and I should go out again?"

"Well," she let out a short breath as she made a helpless shrugging gesture with one hand. "you haven't really given it a chance, Lucas. Just because one date doesn't go very well, you shouldn't just forget the whole thing. Me and Charlie didn't exactly have a great date either but he asked me out again."

Lucas looked at her with warring emotions. "Did you say yes?"

For a moment Riley couldn't speak as she looked back at him. She could see her own churning emotions reflected in his eyes and all she wanted to do was make it stop. But Maya was what was important.

"Not yet, but I'm going to," she decided on the spot.

Hurt and anger flashed across his face, their intensity making his voice raw when he half demanded, and half cried, "Even after what I just said?"

"Lucas," she shook her head, feeling conflicted and wanting to cry. "We decided we were going to be brother and sister," she reminded him waveringly. "And if you don't want to be that, we can be...really good friends. But Maya likes you. And I know you like her, too."

" _How_ do you know that?" he challenged angrily. "Because you didn't hear it from me. Riley, do you even realize that you've never asked me how _I_ feel about all this? Ever since that night in Texas when you decided to change everything, not once have you asked me what I want. Does that not even matter to you?"

"Of course it does!" she immediately replied, but she was struck with guilt when she realized he was right. She hadn't asked. But it wasn't because she thought his feelings weren't important. "Ever since we got back from Texas I've been trying to do what's best for all of us."

"That's not up to just you to decide! Don't you think **we** should get a say?" Without waiting for a reply, he declared, "What's best for all of us is for everyone to be _truthful_ about what they're feeling, and we all figure out where to go from there."

Riley blanched, the meaning behind his words clear. He was saying _she_ was the one who needed to be truthful about her feelings. He knew.

"Farkle told you," she guessed flatly.

"No he didn't," he refuted, aggrieved. "I figured it out myself. I wasn't even sure I was right. Until now."

Riley bit her lip, upset that she'd given it away.

"It's true, isn't it?" he demanded, reading the truth on her face. "You've been lying this whole time," he accused.

"I wasn't _lying_ ," she immediately refuted. "Not at first, anyway," she admitted in a mutter. Her eyes on her lap, she said, "I was trying really hard to make it be true, but..." She shook her head.

"But it wasn't," Lucas concluded. "You never thought of me like a brother."

Riley didn't answer for a long moment, but eventually confirmed it with a shake of her head.

The admission created a jumble of emotions inside him, chief among them being relief.

"But it doesn't matter," she declared in the next instant, obliterating the relief as quickly as it had come.

"What are you talking about? Of course it matters. Riley—"

He was reaching out and moving in closer, but Riley cut him off, bringing her hand up in a halting motion to stop him. "No. _Lucas_. It doesn't matter because this doesn't change things. I still don't want to date you." She thought she saw him flinch, and the pain and disappointment on his face was nearly palpable. "I want us to be a part of each other's lives, always," she reminded him achingly. "When we're older I don't want to have to say to people, 'Lucas Friar was a boy I dated for awhile in middle school. I wonder what he's up to these days?' I want you to be right there, so I can point to you and say 'he's been an important part of my life ever since we were in middle school'."

His expression soft, but intent, he posed a third scenario. "You know, there is another option. You _could_ say, 'he was my first boyfriend in middle school and we're still here together. There have been some ups and downs along the way. And maybe- we even dated other people for awhile. But we always knew we wanted to be an important part of each other's lives, so we did everything we could to make sure that happened'."

Riley looked at him longingly. It would be great if it could work out that way. But even if she was willing to take the risk for it, which she wasn't really sure she was, there was still Maya to consider.

"Even if we did decide that was how we wanted things to go, I think this has to be the part where we date other people," she said mutedly. When he shook his head and started to say something, Riley stopped him with the reminder of, "Maya, Lucas. She's had feelings for you all this time and she never said anything." It always made her feel so sad and guilty to think about her best friend doing that. For her. Her gaze became searching as she added, "And I think you must feel something for her, too, or the 'something' that happened by the campfire wouldn't have happened."

Lucas winced at the stab of guilt he felt about that moment in relation to Riley. Yes, she'd told him their relationship was just platonic, but _his_ feelings hadn't changed. Which was what made it so confusing that it had happened in the first place.

"Yeah, I'm not really sure how that happened. One minute we were arguing, and the next...we almost kissed, but we didn't, Riley," he promised.

Finally, she knew what had actually happened. They'd nearly kissed. The 'moment' Lucas had promised _her_ , when their first real kiss would happen, had somehow never materialized. But in a matter of minutes after Lucas had found out that Maya liked him he'd almost had his moment with her. Riley couldn't deny that that hurt. It was a testament to the 'fire' and 'passion' everyone was always saying they had between them she guessed. And she also thought it said something about the state of Lucas's feelings for Maya.

"Maybe you should have," she told him quietly.

"What?" The question was startled. He was sure he'd misunderstood.

"Maybe you should've kissed her," she reiterated. He looked at her in shocked disbelief and Riley elaborated rather defensively, "There's obviously something between you, Lucas. You should give it a chance. For your sake and Maya's both."

"But... Riley.. what about us?" he questioned.

Riley shook her head. "Even.. if I wanted there to be an us, I couldn't go forward with it knowing that Maya likes you. And that you feel something for her, too."

"And you think Maya will? Riley, when she finds out you still like me she's not going to want to be with me. And I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with it either."

"But you'd be comfortable being with me, knowing that Maya likes you?" she challenged, turning it around on him. "I know you, Lucas. You wouldn't."

She wasn't wrong. He wasn't sure he liked Maya in the same way that he liked Riley, but if he couldn't say anything else for sure, he could say that he definitely cared about her. He hated for her to be hurt, and he honestly wanted her to be happy. He would never want to be the one _causing_ her pain or unhappiness. But the same could be said about Riley. He just couldn't see a clear solution to this.

"Maybe none of us should be with each other like that," he muttered. "Maybe we should all just be friends."

Things would certainly be simpler if they agreed to only be friends. She'd agree with him on that wholeheartedly except...

"Except you almost kissed her, Lucas," she reminded him painfully. "That's not just friendship."

Lucas's eyes darkened with anguish. He'd never felt so conflicted or regretful. He never wanted to cause Riley pain but he'd managed to do it anyway. Because of one out-of-control moment that had thrown everything into question.

"And if it's not just friendship you should figure out what it is," she urged him lowly.

Shaking his head minutely, Lucas matched her quiet tone. "I don't want to hurt you," he told her, balking at the idea of doing anything that caused her further pain.

Riley took a deep breath to bolster herself. "I want my best friends to be happy. If being together is what makes you both happy then that's what I want for you," she said with blind determination. And it was nothing less than the truth. She did want them both to be happy. If it turned out that being a couple made them wildly ecstatic, she'd be glad for them or die trying.

Lucas heard what she wasn't saying though. What she meant was that she'd sacrifice her own happiness if it meant making the two of them happy. And he wasn't okay with that. He knew Maya wouldn't be, either, when she found out the truth.

"We can't make a decision about this without Maya anyway. You need to tell her the truth, Riley."

Riley nodded reluctantly. It would be so much easier for Maya to explore her feelings for Lucas if she didn't know how Riley truly felt about him. It was why she'd wanted to keep her feelings a secret in the first place. But now that Lucas knew the truth she couldn't keep Maya in the dark. It would just make her more hurt and upset when she did eventually find out the truth. And maybe Lucas was right, maybe this was what was best for them all.

"And then we'll figure out where to go from there?" she concluded the thought, repeating his own words back to him.

"Yeah." Lucas somberly nodded back.


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's Note:** I know I only posted chapter 7 here today, but I was trying to get it caught up with what I'd posted on tumblr. I was pretty sure I was going to finally have this new chapter ready tonight (after taking more than a month to write it) and I wanted to post here at the same time as I put it up on tumblr. So enjoy!

 **Chapter 8**

"This has been happening way too often lately," Riley complained mildly as her dad carried her up the stairs to their apartment. "I think I'm starting to get baby flashbacks or something."

"Believe me, kid, you're no baby," Cory told her, breathing heavily as he trudged up the steps with her. "I remember babies. Babies are feathers. This, in my arms, is no feather."

" _Dad,"_ she protested. "You're saying I'm fat?"

"No, I'm saying _I'm_ fat." He huffed breathlessly as he climbed another few steps. "Man, I gotta hit the gym," he muttered as he labored under her slight weight.

"You're not fat, Dad," Riley scoffed, dismissing the thought with a wave. "You're just old," she finished blithely.

"Oh, thank you. Thank you very much for that," Cory drily replied with a nod. "You know, you might wanna be nicer to me, considering I'm gonna be the one schlepping you up and down these stairs for the next few days."

" _Schlepping_." She let out a bubble of laughter. "That's a funny word," she drawled in observation, her face drawn up in a smile. "Schllleppp." She sounded it out, slightly popping the 'p'.

Cory craned his head back a bit to look down at her in amusement. "Those pain pills are workin' pretty good, are they?"

"Yeah," she breathed out happily. "I feel good. I'm not worried about Maya, or Lucas, or anything."

His lips tightened in sympathy and his arms contracted around her in a kind of hug. "I'm glad, honey," he said sincerely.

When they were almost to their floor, they found Topanga waiting for them up on the landing. "I thought I heard you two coming up," she called down to them as they continued to climb.

"Hi, Mommy," Riley greeted her lightly.

"Hi, sweetie. How's your ankle?"

"It's okay, but daddy still has to **schlllepp** me around." She drew out the funny word her dad had introduced and giggled.

When the two of them joined her on the landing Topanga was smiling humorously, but her expression was quizzical as she looked at her husband.

"Pain meds," he explained in a lowered aside.

"Ah," her head tipped back in understanding. "So you're feeling no pain right now, huh?" Putting her hand on Cory's back as they rounded the banister, she ushered them to the apartment from behind.

"I'm not, but Daddy is." Riley spoke to her over Cory's shoulder. "He said I'm not a baby feather," she accused with a pout.

"He did?" Topanga said in mock outrage while biting back a laugh. "Cory," she scolded, playfully slapping him on the back. "Of course our daughter is a baby feather."

"Y'think so? Then you can try carrying her next time," he said sardonically, still trying to catch his breath from the climb.

As they entered the apartment Auggie came running into the living room to meet them. "Is she here? Did she get crutches?" he was calling eagerly before he'd even entered the room.

"No crutches, Auggie. Sorry," Riley answered as Cory continued on through the apartment to take her to her room.

"It's okay," her little brother shrugged, trailing along behind them. "I just wanted to see if they hurt your armpits," he explained in all seriousness. Before anyone had a chance to comment on the humorous statement he was already moving on. "How come they didn't even put a cast on it?" The query almost sounded like a protest. To his mind, if his sister's ankle was really hurt bad it needed something more than the flimsy bandage that was wrapped around it.

"The doctor said her ankle is just strained, bubba. They usually only put on a cast when you have a broken bone," Cory explained as they all crossed the room to Riley's bed.

"Denny Mayfield in my class sprained his wrist falling off the jungle gym. _His_ doctor put on a cast," Auggie reasoned. "It wasn't the kind we could sign though. It was soft and it had velcro."

As Cory set Riley gently down on top of her purple comforter, Topanga rounded the end of the bed to go to the other side. "A strain is not quite as bad as a sprain, honey," she told Auggie as she went.

While she fussed around Riley, fluffing pillows and piling them comfortably behind her back, Cory explained the difference between a strain and a sprain to their youngest.

When the inquisitive little boy got through with all his questions, he turned an earnest look on his injured sister. "Does it hurt, Riley?"

Shaking her head with a smile, she reached out for his hand. "Not right now, Aug. The doctor gave me some **great** pain pills."

"Good," he said in approval. "You want me to sit with you and keep you company?"

"Yeah. If you want to," she replied affectionately.

"How about I help you put on something more comfortable first," Topanga suggested, lifting the folded pants and shirt she'd just taken out of Riley's dresser. At Riley's nod of acquiescence, she said, "Okay, boys, can you clear out and give us a few minutes?"

In compliance, Auggie scampered out the door ahead of his dad, calling back to Riley, "I'll go pick out a story for us to read."

Topanga closed the door behind them then went over to Riley on the bed. "Let's try and get this dress off first, okay?"

Riley did what she could to help, lifting herself briefly so her mom could get the skirt out from under her, then raising her arms so she could pull it off over her head.

While her head was lost inside the folds of fabric, she mumbled, "There's more baby flashbacks."

"What?"

When her head emerged she could see her mom's questioning expression.

"Between Dad carrying me and you helping me dress, I'm starting to feel like a baby again," Riley elaborated.

Topanga smiled, understanding now where the baby feather comment had come from.

"Babies have it easy," Riley pondered dreamily. "They're loved, they get taken care of, and all their choices are made for them."

"Yeah," Topanga said consideringly, helping her into a long sleeved pullover. "But the freedom that comes with being an adult has a lot to be said for it, too."

"I guess," the younger girl agreed without enthusiasm. "But that means you have to make decisions. Hard ones."

"That's true," her mom acknowledged.

Getting the loose-legged pants onto Riley without jostling her ankle too much was the most difficult part of getting her dressed. For the next few moments their only words were the directives they gave each other as they struggled to get them on.

Once Riley was dressed, she leaned back into the pillows with a sigh. Her ankle was twinging with pain now and she wanted the warm cloud she'd been floating on to come back.

"Are you okay? Did we hurt your ankle?"

Her mom's concern reminded her of Lucas's solicitousness at school, and suddenly he was flooding her thoughts.

"Maybe a little," she answered. "But it'll be okay."

"Okay, if you're sure. But if we need to get some ice put on it or something let me know."

Riley just nodded. Her mom bundled up the dress they'd taken off and crossed the room to put it in the clothes hamper, then went over to the bed to adjust the pillow she'd placed under the injured ankle. Riley watched her bustle around and let her pain meds work their magic.

"Mom?"

"Yeah, honey?" Topanga stopped what she was doing and gave her daughter her attention.

"I don't think of Lucas as a brother," she confessed, seemingly out of the blue.

"No?" Coming around the bed, she sat down beside Riley, sensing there was more.

Riley shook her head. "I said I love him like a brother, but..." She pulled in a breath. "I just love 'im," she said on the exhale, her tone somewhat offhanded.

"You do?" Topanga asked softly, her heart swelling for her little girl. She'd suspected it was true, but she'd thought it would take a little more time for it to develop that far. Riley and Lucas were still so young, but she and Cory had been their age when they'd said their first I love yous, so she wouldn't discount their feelings. The acknowledgement was bittersweet though. Her baby was growing up.

"Yeah, I love him a lot I think," Riley reiterated, "But I don't want to be his girlfriend. I think Maya is gonna be his girlfriend."

Trying to process that, Topanga asked, "Does Maya love him?"

"I don't know," she shrugged a shoulder. "I think so. They almost kissed," she offered as proof.

"When was this?" The older woman arched a brow.

"In Texas, after I told Lucas I wanted us to be brother and sister."

"That was pretty fast, wasn't it?" Topanga frowned.

"Yeah," Riley answered, watching her fingers draw patterns on her comforter. "They're like- Damien and Helena."

"Who?" Her expression confused, she tried to think of anyone they knew by those names.

"I don't know." The young girl shrugged half-heartedly. "They just have all this passion. Or something." Her gaze was still unfocused as her lips turned down in a sympathetic pout. Sadly, as if she were talking about someone else, she tacked on, "Poor Riley doesn't even hold a candle."

Topanga had no way of knowing that her daughter was repeating the comments she'd overheard in the school restroom earlier that week, but it was obvious to her that Riley had heard it from somewhere.

"Ookay," she stopped her right there. "First of all, you kids are too young to 'have all this passion or something'. I know feelings can be strong and overwhelming, and it's easy to get swept away by them, but that doesn't mean you have to act on them. If that's the reason Lucas and Maya's almost-kiss didn't happen, then I think that's a good thing. I don't think they're ready to go where that would take them. I don't think any of you are ready for that.

"And secondly," she took Riley's face between her palms and turned it toward hers, "you, my sweet, strong, amazingly kind-hearted daughter- _you_ ," she wobbled the girl's head gently between her hands and thrust her own face slightly forward so that she was speaking directly to her, "can hold a candle to anyone. Just because what you have with someone- whether it be friends, family, or someone you love- doesn't conform to what other people think it should look like, that doesn't make it inferior. You," again, she emphasized the word with a gentle shake, "are a unique individual. And the people in your life are all unique. That means your relationships will be your own. If what you have together is healthy and right, and it makes you and the other person happy and fulfilled, then don't worry what other people say about it."

Letting go of her face, she put her arms around her daughter, gathering her close to her side, and held her loosely. "Kids always try to grow up so fast," she lamented. "They're so eager to take on things that they might not be ready to handle. You? Just keep being you. Go at your own pace, Riley. I promise you, you'll get there," she told her, her arms tightening around her in a hug. "And if you're with the right person, someone who loves you and wants what's best for you, he'll be happy to go along at your pace." Topanga pulled back to look at her, still holding her loosely in the circle of her arms. "Okay?"

Smiling, Riley nodded. "Okay. Thanks, mom," she said warmly. For the first time since she'd heard those girls in the bathroom she felt like maybe it was okay that she and Lucas hadn't had some fiery, intense relationship. They'd always just been them and that was good enough. Of course, her warm cloud was back around her, so that might have something to do with her feelings of easy acceptance.

"So, you think Maya loves him, too, huh?" Topanga brushed a lock of Riley's hair over her shoulder and stroked her fingers through it as she spoke. "And that's why you're just going to be friends with him?"

"Well that was all I wanted us to be anyway, so..."

With a confused frown, she asked, "Why's that?"

Riley shrugged. "I don't want us to end up like Uncle Shawn and Angela," she reasoned. "Lucas is too important to me. If we dated, we'd break up eventually, and I wouldn't want us to stop talking after that and completely lose him from my life."

"If he's that important to you, and he feels the same way, it sounds like you wouldn't let that happen," her mom said in a near-repeat of what Lucas had told her earlier. "You don't think that if Maya dates Lucas the same thing won't happen to them?"

Riley blinked. Somehow that had never even occurred to her. "I hadn't really thought about it," she admitted to her mom. Now that it had been pointed out it seemed crazy that she hadn't thought of it.

If it was a given that she and Lucas would break up at some point after dating, it was just as inevitable that it would happen with Maya and Lucas. And what if they didn't part on friendly terms? What if they didn't want anything to do with each other after it was over? Riley would be forced to choose between them and she couldn't bear to lose either one of them. The whole idea of it was upsetting.

"I didn't mean to worry you," Topanga told her, running a soothing hand across her back. "I was just pointing out that we can't really know how the choices we make are going to turn out in the end."

"Then how do we even make them?" Riley questioned, brow furrowed in a frown.

Her mom replied shruggingly, "I think all we can do is make the most informed decisions we can. And if they don't work out ideally, we do what we can to change the outcome. Does that make sense?"

Riley wasn't sure but she thought what her mom was saying jibed with their plan to tell each other the truth and decide where to go from there.

"I'm not sure," she said in answer. "I guess so. I think those pills are making me a little fuzzy," she confessed.

Smiling, Topanga patted her gently, saying, "That's okay, sweetie. We can talk about this later if you want."

"I'll probably need to," Riley acknowledged. "Maya and Lucas are coming over later so we can talk. I'm supposed to tell Maya that I don't love him like a brother."

"That sounds like a difficult conversation. Are sure it's wise to be having it when you're feeling 'fuzzy'?"

"They won't be here for another..." she looked at her bedside clock, "hour or so. The pills should be worn off a little by then, shouldn't they?"

"Probably so," Topanga concurred. Pushing back the hair framing her daughter's face and hooking it behind her ear, she suggested, "Maybe you could let Auggie read you to sleep, and I'll wake you up when they get here."

"I am kind of tired," Riley admitted, agreeable to the plan.

"Let's get you fixed up then." Rising from the bed to go around to Riley's other side, she and the younger girl worked to get her under the covers while keeping the weight of the bedcovers off of her ankle.

"You know, there's one thing I haven't heard you mention in all of this," Topanga remarked while she was arranging the covers over her. "Maybe you don't know the answer, but it seems like a pretty important detail."

"What's that?" Riley asked, scooting down so she could lay her head on the pillows.

As she adjusted the covers around her daughter's foot, she posed the question she was wondering about. "Which one of you does Lucas love?" When Riley just looked at her she questioned further, "Have you asked him?"

Had she come right out and asked him? No. Riley wasn't sure if the things he'd said in the nurse's office that afternoon meant that he actually _loved_ her, but it seemed like he felt something for her. The same could be said for Maya though.

"That seems like something you all should know before making an informed decision," Topanga noted after a few moments of silence.

"What if he loves both of us?"

"I'm not sure I believe you can love two people at the same time. Not with the same kind of love, and with the same intensity. I don't have personal experience, so I can't say for sure, but it seems to me that if someone was feeling that way then maybe they just need to sort their feelings out. In time, I think they'd figure out that they loved one more, or in a different way, than the other."

Before Riley had a chance to think about that, they were interrupted by her little brother calling impatiently from the other side of her door, "Aren't you decent yet?"

Emitting a short laugh that she shared with her mother, she answered, "Yeah. Come on in, Auggie, it's fine."

Opening the door, Auggie scampered inside and over to the bed. He held a juice box in one hand and a book tucked under his arm.

"What book did you bring?" Topanga asked him indulgently, already recognizing the familiar worn cover.

"'Murray the Marvelous Moose'." The little boy showed it to them briefly before laying the book on the bed and scrambling up himself to sit beside his sister.

"Good choice," Riley approved, knowing it was still one of his favorites.

"We've decided our patient needs a little nap," their mom informed him, giving one last adjustment to Riley's covers. "You think you can read her to sleep?"

Auggie nodded confidently. "I'm good at bedtime stories," he assured them, dragging the book over to his lap. Once he was settled he handed the juice box to Riley, saying, "This is for you."

"Thank you, Auggie," she said fondly, touched by his attempt to take care of her.

"I'll leave you two to it," Topanga said, backing away. "I'll wake you in an hour, Riley."

"Thanks, Mom." Jabbing the small straw into her box of juice, Riley lifted her head to take a few sips, then set it aside to snuggle down into the pillows.

Auggie had the book open on his lap and was leafing to the first page of the story. "I can do the voices good, but I'm not as good at it as Mommy or Daddy," he said apologetically.

"I'm sure you'll be great," she encouraged, her eyes already feeling heavy.

"One day, Murray the moose woke up and didn't want to be a moose anymore..." he began.

Riley was very familiar with the story he was reading. He'd had the book for over two years and everyone in the family had read it to him more than once as part of his own bedtime ritual. She had to smile at his attempt to deepen his voice the way she'd heard their dad do when he was reading Murray's dialogue.

She was with the moose up until he decided he wanted to be a porpoise, and then she was down for the count.

The next thing she knew, her mom was gently shaking her awake, saying, "Riley? It's been almost an hour, honey. I thought you'd want a little time to get woken up before your friends get here."

Opening her eyes, Riley responded in a voice that was gravelly from sleep. "'kay. Thanks, Mom."

Waking more fully, she inhaled deeply. She was midway through a full body stretch when her ankle reminded her it was injured. The pang that shot through her leg when she pointed her toes was sharp and insistent.

"Ow," she said flatly, wincing at the pain.

"Are you okay?" her mom asked instantly.

"Yeah, I guess I just forgot for a second."

"Do we need to do anything for it? Ice, another pillow? Your dad brought some cream home with you that might help with the soreness."

"Maybe in a minute," she replied. "Right now I really just need to go the bathroom." She huffed a little self-conscious laugh.

They called her dad in to help, and though Riley protested that he didn't have to carry her there, he did it anyway, arguing that it would be less strain on her ankle that way.

He carried her back to bed when she was finished, and her mom helped her get situated amongst the covers.

She glanced at Riley's face as she was straightening out the comforter beneath her. "Nervous?" she asked empathetically.

Riley made a face at being so easy to read. "Yeah," she admitted, smoothing out the fabric of her pants. Now that her pain meds had worn off a little, her worry over the coming conversation was back in full force. "I just want her not to be upset with me for not telling her the truth before," she said with a diffident little smile.

Topanga nodded in understanding. "She may be upset that you weren't truthful with her at first. But you wanted to give her a fair chance with Lucas. That's why you did it, right?" She still hadn't been given all the particulars, so she partially asked to make sure she'd figured everything out correctly. When Riley confirmed that she had, she said, "I'm sure Maya will understand that." She rubbed her daughter's back in reassurance. "I'm just glad you're telling the truth now. Maybe now that you'll all be clear on each other's feelings you can come to a mutual decision about what to do about them."

"That's what Lucas said," she said with mild surprise, marveling that they'd both come to the same conclusion.

"Well, Lucas is a very smart young man," Topanga said fondly. "I hope you girls will ask him about his feelings too when you talk this afternoon. I know your relationship with Maya is very important, but don't be so intent on keeping your friendship with her intact that you're not completely fair to him, okay?"

"Okay," Riley agreed, feeling guilty that maybe she had been focusing more on doing what was right for Maya than she had on Lucas. But it wasn't like she'd forced him to do anything. He'd asked Maya out all on his own. And almost kissing her was entirely his doing too, she reminded herself darkly.

Her mom doctored her ankle with the cream her dad had brought from the pharmacy, then she rewrapped it and helped get it comfortably placed on the pillow again. After bringing her a bottle of water and making sure she didn't need anything else, she left Riley with the parting statement that dinner would be ready in an hour or so.

Only a few minutes after she'd left, Maya climbed into view outside the bay window. Taking a deep breath, Riley tried to quell the nervous dread pooling in her stomach. But her fingers betrayed her by fiddling restlessly with the comforter beside her leg as her best friend entered through the window.

"Hey. How ya doin', honey?" she asked, crossing the room, sympathy coloring her features.

The warm familiarity of the greeting made Riley smile in spite of her nerves. "Not too bad," she answered. "The pain meds I took a couple of hours ago are holding up pretty good."

"Oh, yeah? They gave you the good stuff, huh? What did the doctor say, did you sprain it?" She cast a look at the injured ankle, wrapped thoroughly in its ace bandaging.

"He said it was strained and it would probably take a few weeks to heal. I'm supposed to try and stay off of it as much as I can."

"So I guess you'll be hobbling for the forseeable future. That kinda sucks," she empathized, sitting on the bed at Riley's hip.

"Coulda been worse, I guess," Riley shrugged. "I shouldn't have been climbing around on that stool."

"Yeah, good thing Huckleberry was there to catch you." Maya's lips twisted in a wry sort of smile, her eyes turned down toward her lap.

"Yeah. Good thing," Riley echoed with an uncomfortable little laugh, looking at the other girl searchingly. She wondered what Maya had seen when Lucas had caught her, and what she was thinking if she had, but her face stayed downturned, giving Riley no clues.

"Speaking of Huckleberry," Maya said, finally lifting her eyes to glance toward the window. "I figured he'd be here by now. He said to be here at 5:00." Turning her gaze back to Riley, she said, "He was actin' all weird and mysterious, and said we all needed to talk. Do you know what he was talking about?"

Now it was Riley's turn to look away as her trepidation rose. "Yeah," she admitted. "I, uh- I have something to tell you, actually. And we thought we should all talk about it. After I tell you what I have to tell you," she ramblingly reiterated.

Maya frowned, her expression becoming uneasy. "What do you have to tell me? Riley, what's going on?"

Riley just looked at her for a moment, her face twisted with reluctant distress. "It's about what I said in Texas. And what I've been saying ever since we got back." She knew she was stalling, and Maya was looking more tense by the minute, so she finally just blurted it out. "I don't really think of Lucas like a brother."

Maya just looked confused at first and shook her head bewilderedly. "You lied?" Riley merely bit her lip in answer, causing the other girl to question her further. "So what are you saying? Are you saying you still like him?"

Riley displayed another moment of reticence, then minutely nodded her head, but the look on her face was really all the confirmation Maya needed.

"Riley, how could you lie to me about that? I went out with him because I thought you were gonna be brother and sister!" She stopped as realization hit. "And that's why you did it, didn't you? _Riley!_ " She rose abruptly from the bed in anger, not even needing a confirmation this time. "It makes me so mad that you would do that! You _tricked_ me into—" she broke off, not wanting to go there, and combed her hands through her hair in agitation. "We don't lie to each other. Ever!" she said instead. " **You're** the one who's always saying that. How could you do this?!" It was so much easier to focus on that aspect of it than to face all the guilt she was suddenly feeling, so Maya welcomed the anger she felt.

"It wasn't completely a lie," Riley tried to excuse guiltily. "I **wanted** to think of him like a brother. I _tried_ to think of him that way... It wasn't completely working I don't guess, but I would've kept on trying if Farkle hadn't figured it out and made me see that I was lying."

" _Farkle_ figured it out?" Maya exclaimed incredulously, throwing her arms out in an abbreviated gesture. She couldn't believe that the one friend in their group who claimed to know the least about feelings had figured this out when she hadn't. "Great! Is there anyone who doesn't know this was a lie except me?"

Put off by her attitude, Riley replied shortly. "I don't **know** who knows what and who doesn't. It's not like I told him anything before he confronted me about it."

"I notice you didn't say Lucas still thinks it's a lie."

Her lips flattened as she looked away for a moment. Reluctantly, knowing that it was probably going to set her off again, she admitted, "He figured it out in the nurse's office this afternoon."

She was right about it setting Maya off. "So everybody figured it out except stupid, clueless Maya!" She paced a few agitated steps away.

"Why are you acting like this? Why does it even matter who knows?" Riley questioned in confused exasperation.

" _Because!_ I'm your best friend! I should've known!" Her shoulders fell, and her voice dropped an octave but was no less tense. "I'm supposed to know you better than anyone else. I should've been the first one to figure out what you were doing." She shook her head, unable to understand how she'd missed it. "It's so obvious now. I mean, of _course_ that's what you were gonna do when you found out I had feelings for him. I don't know how I could've been such an idiot."

"Maya, you're not an idiot. It doesn't matter that you didn't figure it out." Even as she was saying it, Riley realized that wasn't completely true. A small part of her had been a little hurt that Maya was taking everything she said at face value and couldn't see the truth of her feelings. Like she'd said, she knew her better than anyone, and Riley couldn't understand why she couldn't see how much she was struggling with her feelings for Lucas. Of course, she'd been just as blind to Maya's struggles to do the same, so Riley could hardly hold it against her. "If that makes you an idiot, then I'm an even bigger one. It took me almost two years to figure out you liked Lucas."

Eyes shifting away, Maya refuted the statement shortly, guilt threatening to overtake her anger. "No it didn't."

"What do you mean?" Riley asked in confusion. "We've known him for nearly two years now."

Guilt finally won out, making her voice more hesitant as she haltingly replied, "Yeah, but... I haven't liked him-like that- all this time."

"You _haven't_? But, I thought... You stepped back, didn't you?"

"Not- really. Not the way you think," she admitted.

"What other way is there, Maya? We both liked him when we met him, and you stepped back so I could have a chance with him. **That's** stepping back. Are you saying that's not what you did?" Riley asked in agitation. The idea that she was wrong about that one thing shifted everything in a direction she didn't like. She wanted Maya to just tell her that she wasn't understanding correctly, but instead she got a reluctant head shake.

"I don't know why you even thought that in the first place," Maya said a bit defensively. "After everything I did last year to help you get together with him? I was the pushed him to ask you on your first date. I went out with _Farkle_ just so you could go out with him. I even helped him with the horse thing when he rode you off on it like a princess. Why would you think I'd do all those things if I liked him myself?"

"I thought you were trying to make me happy in spite of your own feelings for him." That was part of why she was so upset at learning this. She'd spent an entire week feeling guilty and sick over all those moments, thinking they should've been Maya's moments instead, and here she was saying that she hadn't even liked Lucas then. "If you didn't like him then, why were you always flirting?" she asked almost accusingly. "You were always up in his face and trying to get under his skin, Maya. What was that about?"

"I don't know." Maya shifted uncomfortably at being forced to confront her actions. "We were just playing. That's what we do," she tried to explain. And it was the truth. At least she'd always thought it was until the stupid year books came out and made her question it. "I never knew you thought of it as flirting," she said in quiet inquiry.

"I didn't, at first. But everybody else did, and it was pointed out to me," she said with stiff hurt. The conversation in the bathroom was most immediately called to mind, but then there were all the other things she'd accidentally overheard this past week and around year book time on top of that.

"Riley, I'm so sorry. I never saw it as flirting. I would never do that. Not- intentionally anyway," she qualified with a frown, forced again to question her own actions. The truth was, she wasn't sure anymore _what_ she had and hadn't done. It was all just a confused mess when she tried to get it all straight in her head.

"Maybe you liked him and you didn't know it," Riley postulated, trying to come up with an excuse for Maya's actions so this didn't feel so much like a betrayal. Because if she hadn't liked Lucas from the very beginning that meant she'd started looking at him romantically after she knew how much Riley liked him, and it hurt too much to think that she would do that to her.

"Maybe." Maya shrugged a shoulder while shaking her head in an unknowing manner. "To be honest I'm not even sure anymore. I've been asking myself when I started having these feelings and I really don't even know. That's why I never corrected you when you said I'd stepped back. I didn't feel so bad about letting _you_ step back if I could let myself believe that maybe I **had** done it first."

She shook her head. "But when I think back to that first day on the subway... I mean, yeah, I thought he was cute," she allowed, "but I didn't feel like I made any kind of connection with him or anything, not like you did that first day. When he showed up in our History class I could tell how much you already liked him, and he seemed to like you too, so I was happy for you. And I was happy to do what I could to help you get together with him. I wouldn't have felt that way if I'd liked him too, right? I mean, I would've been jealous or something. Right?"

"You'd think," Riley had to agree, unhappy to hear that Maya hadn't really felt anything special for Lucas that first day, or anytime in the beginning it seemed.

"Well, I wasn't jealous," she declared, thinking that settled it, oblivious that she was only making things worse in Riley's eyes. But then her head tipped to the side as something occurred to her and she admitted, "Okay, maybe I was a _little_ jealous when he called you a princess and you two rode off on that horse together like it was the end of some fairytale or something. But what girl wouldn't be, right?" When another instance occurred to her, she frowned and confessed more slowly, "And when you were playing like Romeo and Juliet, and he promised you some big epic moment... _that_ might've made me a little jealous."

She frowned more deeply and her gaze turned inward when still other instances came back to her; on their first date, when they'd walked into the subway station to meet the boys, and Lucas hadn't been able to take his eyes off Riley. He'd looked at her like she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, and Maya remembered thinking that no one would ever look at her like that. And after their date was over and she and Riley were talking in her room, Riley had been over the moon over everything that had happened that night, especially her and Lucas's first kiss. In comparison, hers with Farkle had been like a dog with a chew toy, and she'd been envious as she sat there listening to Riley go on and on about how wonderful Lucas was. Then there was the semi-formal this year, when Riley had hadnot only Lucas wanting to take her, but Charlie too, and Maya's only invitation had been the ongoing obligatory turn-down she always got from Farkle. Lucas had danced with her that night, sure, but it had been obvious that he was more interested in what Riley and Charlie were doing, and Maya had been resentful of the entire thing.

It was troubling to realize that she had actually been jealous a lot. And for such a long time, too. She didn't know why she hadn't realized it before now. So maybe she really had liked Lucas from the beginning. She honestly hadn't thought so, but it seemed like she was wrong. Which was really just freakin' fantastic. That made this just another hopeless chronicle in the life of Maya Hart.

Because whether she'd stepped back or not, she'd never had a chance with Lucas. He'd only had eyes for Riley from the moment she fell into his lap. Maya knew that. She'd resigned herself to that fact. Until Riley had blown everything to smithereens when they were in Texas. What she'd done there had made Maya think that _maybe_ she finally had a chance with him, and she'd allowed herself to hope. But she'd been stupid for doing that. And she was mad at herself as much as Riley because she **knew** better. Hope was for suckers.

"I wish you would've just left things alone," she said irately. "Why'd you have to do this to me?"

"What do you mean? Why do you think I've done something _to_ you? I did this _for_ you," Riley corrected with an irked frown.

"Well, who asked you to, Riley?" She made a growling sound of frustration. "You always think you have to _fix_ everything. But this wasn't something that needed fixing! I was fine with everything the way it was."

Stung by the intimation that she'd butted in where she wasn't wanted, she refuted tightly, "You weren't fine, Maya. You couldn't have been. It's not okay that you were just standing there silently on the sidelines watching us together. I know how that feels now and it's not _fine_."

It was for me," Maya argued. "I'd gotten used to it. I knew that was the way things were gonna be and I'd made my peace with it. But now everything's ruined. We'll never be able to go back to the way things were because you've opened up this whole stupid can of worms that never should've been opened in the first place.

"Well I thought it did," she refuted stiffly. "I couldn't let things keep going on the way they were when I knew how much you'd sacrificed for me and that what I was doing was hurting you. I'm sorry if that makes you mad, but I just couldn't."

"You really should have," she told her, grudgingly understanding her plight, but still resentful. "Everything's a complete mess now, Riley. I don't know how we're supposed to come back from this."

Riley bit her lip. Yes, she was upset with her, but now she was worried that she might've jeopardized her relationship with Maya irreparably, and that wasn't something she wanted. It was the complete opposite of what she'd been trying to do when she'd started all this and she didn't know how it had gotten so messed up.

It was that moment that Lucas climbed cautiously in the window. He'd delayed coming over to give the two girls a chance to talk alone for awhile first.

"Hey," he said once he was inside the room. The greeting was subdued, and he looked between the two of them as if trying to gauge the climate of the room. "So you told her?"

He'd posed the question to Riley but it was Maya who answered shortly, "Yeah, the best friend that should've known has finally been let in on the secret. Congrats on knowing Riley better than me after only knowing her for two years."

"Would you stop with that?" Riley said exasperatedly. "I don't understand why you're so fixated on that. It's hardly the worst part in all this."

"No, you're right," Maya agreed with a short nod. "The worst part is that my best friend lied to me and pushed me to get together with the boyfriend she still liked. _And I went along with it_." She didn't know who she was more upset with over that, Riley or herself. Things looked different now that she knew what Riley had done and she didn't like her own responses very much.

"It's not really helpful to make accusations right now," Lucas said, trying to keep things reasonable. "I'm sure Riley knows now that this might not have been the best way to handle things."

Maya watched Riley guiltily meet Lucas's gaze. "Of course you'd take her side," she said sourly, her bitterness getting the best of her.

Lucas shot her a look of reproof. "I'm not taking her side, Maya," he objected. "I'm not taking anyone's side. There shouldn't even **be** any sides. We're in this together. That's why we're all here to discuss this and try to figure out what we should do."

"I don't know why you think there's anything to discuss," Maya said contentiously, the same bitterness coloring her tone. "She likes you," she gestured from Riley to Lucas with an upturned palm, "I'm pretty sure you still like her," she gestured back to Riley, "and I'm just the idiot that got in your way." She ended with her palm flattened against her chest.

"Would you please stop calling yourself that?" Riley scolded. "You're not an idiot. And the reason we have something to discuss is because he has feelings for you," she informed the other girl.

Maya's eyes flew to Lucas uncertainly.

"Okay, could we all please stop saying how we think the other people involved are feeling, like it's a fact?" Lucas asked, his hands coming up in a staying motion as he divided his look between the two girls. "That's the whole reason we wound up here in the first place, because everyone thinks they know how the others feel and no one's been honest about their own feelings."

This time Maya's eyes went to Riley, who was looking down remorsefully, but Lucas forestalled them both, adding, "I'm not just talking about Riley, I'm talking about you and me, too, Maya. The only reason I even have for thinking you like me is because Riley told me. You've never told me if it was true," he pointed out.

"And I'm never going to," she answered flatly.

"Maya," Riley said reproachfully.

"What? You want me to stand here and bare my heart and soul to you two after all this? Well, I won't. I've already been enough of a chump."

"You haven't been a chump, Maya, you've just been following your heart," Riley said grudgingly.

"Yeah, like a chump," she agreed.

"So you're admitting that you do have feelings for him?"

"I'm not admitting anything," she muttered.

"Then I don't see how we're gonna be able to fix any of this," Lucas said almost grimly, a flat look of certainty on his face. "Because the only other option I see is to just bury everything and try to move on. But then it'll just be awkward and there will always be this huge elephant in the room making us all uncomfortable with each other, and we might even start avoiding each other because of it. Is that what you want? For our friendships with each other to just fall apart? I know it's not what I want."

The two girls looked at each other. This whole thing was already an awkward mess, but they both knew they didn't want to let it tear them all completely apart, and they answered him with a shake of their heads.

"Then we have to be honest with each other," he insisted. "No matter how we think it might affect the other people in this room, we need to tell each other how we feel." He knew it wasn't going to be an easy thing to do, but he was sure this was something that they all needed to hear in order to figure things out.

Maya didn't find the prospect appealing at all. "If you're so gung ho about it why don't you go ahead and tell us then," she challenged.

"That's fine, I'll go first," he assented, knowing someone had to go first, and he was willing to step up if it would fix things.

"Okay, but first can you both sit down?" Riley requested. "My neck is getting tired from looking up at you."

They both complied immediately, Maya sitting back down at Riley's hip, and Lucas going around to the empty side of the bed.

"Do you need anything?" he asked before sitting down. "I didn't even ask you about your ankle," he realized, apologetic.

"I'm fine," Riley assured dismissively. "The doctor gave me pain pills."

"That's good," he nodded approvingly. Taking care not to jostle the mattress, he sat facing her with a leg tucked up on the bed.

There was an oppressive moment of silence as the three of them looked at one another uncomfortably.

"Okay, so I'm going first," Lucas repeated, rubbing his palms against his thighs in a nervous gesture. Focusing his gaze on Riley, he started with the easiest one. "I guess everybody already knows this part, but my feelings for you haven't changed. I still like you, Riley. And I'm happy being your friend, but I'll admit, I thought there'd be more between us someday." He opened his mouth to say more, but then he decided to just leave it there for now.

For Maya, he was only confirming what she already knew. She didn't know what the point of this even was. He liked _Riley_. Why did anything else even matter?

Before she could get too mired in her bitter disappointment and hurt, he was turning to her.

"And Maya," he began, immediately losing his air of self-assurance. Instead, his look became uncertain, and maybe a bit uncomfortable. "My feelings for you aren't as clear as they used to be. We've always been friends." His tone became a bit lighter as he fondly pointed out what he enjoyed about that relationship. "We kid around and have fun together, and I know you always have my back just like I have yours. I never had any idea you wanted something more than that, and when Riley said you did...well, it forced me to look at you differently. And I guess- maybe..." he faltered slightly, then pushed the next words out. "I can't say there's not something...there. I mean, what happened at the campfire that night—" his eyes darted to Riley apologetically, but her gaze was fixed firmly on her lap. He lowered his as well, and he looked even more uncomfortable as he forced himself to continue. "What happened that night, it had to have come from somewhere. It wasn't something that would happen if you were just friends. So, maybe that means there's something more between us. To be completely honest, I don't really know anymore. When it comes to you, my feelings have become this giant question mark. And I know that's vague and doesn't really tell you anything, but that's the best I can do right now."

When he was through, there was a long, pregnant pause.

"Well, that was- completely painful and awkward," Riley acknowledged, trying to deflect her response to his words with humor.

The brief lift of his brows said that was an understatement as he chuffed a note of laughter and nodded his head in agreement. "Sure glad I went first," he attempted to joke further, taking his cue from her.

No one looked at each other as they all laughed uneasily.

"I can go next," Riley volunteered, "but everyone already knows how I feel, too." Looking at Lucas, her tone became almost shy as she admitted, "My feelings for you never really changed either. I just didn't want to keep going the way we were going because I was afraid I would end up losing you. And then, when I realized Maya had feelings for you," she shifted her gaze to her best friend, "I wanted to give you a chance to be together." Looking at Maya, the troubled misgivings she'd had earlier in the conversation fell to the wayside for the moment as she remembered what she wanted for her. "That hasn't changed either," she insisted.

"What?" The other girl's eyes widened in surprise. "Riley, that's crazy. You like him and he likes you. There's no chance of _us_ being together." She said it as though it was ridiculous to even suggest it.

"Why not?" Riley asked evenly.

"Because. _He likes you_ ," she said again, more succinctly, leaning forward for extra emphasis.

"But he has feelings for you, too," she reminded the other girl.

"Yeah, some gigantic question mark," she scoffed, her shoulders bunching while she shook her head as though that were negligible.

Her tone was somewhat disparaging, and Lucas took exception to it a little bit. "Okay, yeah, I'm not completely sure what I feel. Are you?" he challenged. "We still haven't heard anything about your feelings," he pointed out.

Riley could read the stubborn denial darkening her friend's eyes, and before Maya could open her mouth to refuse yet again she said, "Maya. It's only fair. We told _you_."

"Yah, and what you told me was that you like each other, so anything I say about my feelings now is just humiliating. So no, it's not fair of you to ask that of me, Riley," she said a bit resentfully.

"There's no reason for you to be humiliated," Riley said reasonably. "We're your friends and we care about you. Friends talk to each other and real friends listen, remember? We wouldn't make fun of you or anything."

"I know that," she dismissed that as a concern.

"So then tell us," Lucas prompted more quietly, his challenging air completely discarded.

She looked from one to the other mutinously, but then her defiant expression broke.

"Fine," she conceded. "I don't see the point, but whatever. I like you," she told Lucas abruptly. "Okay? Satisfied now? That 'something' you said was there between us? I've been feeling it since before the yearbooks came out. I knew it was wrong and it made me a terrible person, but I was never gonna let it change how things were." She turned back to look at her best friend. "I would never hurt you like that, Riley," she said earnestly.

Riley tried to smile at her in assurance, but it was a pale imitation of her usual smile. None of this was anything she hadn't already figured out for herself, but hearing it straight from Maya's mouth caused an ache somewhere deep inside her. And Maya's claims that she wouldn't hurt her didn't really make it feel any better.

"I knew how much you liked him," Maya went on. "So my feelings- they were just another thing to stuff down into the darkness with my ballerina dreams."

"And Josh," Riley added with another weak smile, recalling the conversation when she had told Riley and her mom about the dungeon of darkness she had buried inside her.

"Where does he fit in?" Lucas asked, picking up on the name. "Are you saying you like both of us?"

Maya had been asking herself the same question. It wasn't like her feelings for Josh had just disappeared. She sill thought he was gorgeous and amazing. But it was just so exhausting to keep beating her head against the wall he'd put up between them because of the difference in their ages. She felt like she was mature for her age and had a lot to offer if he would just give her a chance, but she didn't think he was ever going to see that because of the age thing.

Then it had seemed like Lucas was seeing the things in her that she wished Josh would. He'd called her beautiful, and talented, and he wanted her to be happy. That was when things had started changing, and had become totally confusing.

"I'm not sure where he fits in," she finally answered. "Nowhere, obviously. And neither do you. Looks like I just have a thing for guys I can't really have." She tried to play it off lightly, but there was a bitter undercurrent to her tone.

There was an awkward silence following her statement, with no one really knowing what to say. Riley felt bad for Maya that nothing ever seemed to work out for her with the guys she liked, but she was right, she did seem to keep picking guys where there were complications involved. Riley was determined to un-complicate things with Lucas, but it concerned her that Maya might think she still liked Josh too.

"My mom says she doesn't think you can love two people at the same time. Not with the same kind of intensity. She thought if you spent some time sorting out your feelings you'd figure out that you loved one differently than you did the other. I think maybe that's what you should do. Both of you. Just go out, **talk to each other** , and figure things out." She was proud of herself for sounding so steady and decisive. She did think that sounded like it would be the best thing, but that didn't mean it was easy to suggest it. Especially after all their confessions.

"Riley, you've gotta stop saying that," Maya protested sharply. "I am not gonna go out with the guy I know you like. Especially when he likes you, too. _You_ should be dating him."

With lowered eyes, Riley said, "I already told you, that's not where I want our relationship to go. I just want us to be friends." It was getting harder for her to say that, and she couldn't look at Lucas while she said it or she was afraid she'd lose some of her resolve.

"What about what **he** wants?" Maya gestured to Lucas with an open palm. "Is that what you want, Lucas? Do you just want to be friends with her?" she asked belligerently. Her air was that of someone who already knew the answer.

He darted a look at Riley before answering. "If that's what makes her happy."

"That's not what I asked," she said in irritation. "What do **you** want?"

What he wanted was to think that someday he and Riley would still wind up in the place he thought they'd been heading to together. But he could see her point about him needing to figure out his feelings for Maya so there wouldn't be any questions. He didn't like to think that the answers to those questions might somehow lead him away from Riley, but he knew he needed them answered. For all their sake's.

Quietly, he repeated his answer. "I want Riley to be happy. And if she doesn't want to date then I'm not gonna pressure her into it."

Frustrated at getting no support from his corner, she looked at Riley instead. When all she found there was unwavering determination, she threw up her hands. "Well, I'm not dating him either," she insisted.

A part of Riley wanted to say okay, and just let it go at that. But she knew she couldn't do that, it wouldn't settle anything. "Then don't call it dating," she finally thought to suggest. "But I think you should spend time together and figure out what you're really feeling. Otherwise, things will never be right between you two. You can't go on like everything is normal when you have all this... unresolved stuff between you."

Maya chewed on her lip, unsure what to do. It still didn't feel right to do this to Riley, but what she was saying made sense. She didn't want things to be weird with Lucas but they definitely were now, and they probably would be until they could get something settled between them. And if he felt _something_ for her and it wasn't really dating, wouldn't that make it alright?

I'll think about it," she finally consented.

If it was the right course of action- and they all thought it was- then why did it leave them feeling so hollow?


End file.
